We first viewed the film KAE and Nathalie had written together to offer the children a guided 'walk through' the Heavenly Lights exhibition selecting the artwork relevant to the artistic activities to follow.
A walk which took them for a journey in the stories Margaret Agnes Rope has painted.
Nathalie did then an introduction to the art of stained glass, an art form they may have seen in the Shrewsbury Roman Catholic Cathedral, as pupils of the Roman Catholic School.
It was a time to share the study Nathalie did
to identify the birds Marga had clearly cherished in her cartoons.
Two cartoons on show in the Heavenly Lights were the perfect display
of Margaret Agnes Rope love of birds.
One of five high windows by Margaret Agnes Rope in Saint Peter and St Paul in Newport. The birds truly have a meaning in the landscape. A dipper by the well, a lesser redpoll in the woody leafy background, a kingfisher appearing by her arm in its flight which is an other bird of waters or a solitary bird, all placed in the sites a ornithologist will find them.
The school the participants go to is named after St Winefride
St Winefride is also meaningful to Nathalie who first went to St Winefride's Well in 1995 or 1996.
She had been for a major head surgery in France in 1994,
before she moved to Swansea University to study stained glass art.
She since then went back to the site nearly each year.
She wanted to give her prayers to St Winefride to keep her head in good shape for many years.
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Cartoon 2
The Benedicte (Llandovery, Wales)
Given in memory of Herbert and Teresa Vaughan, the nephew and niece of the artist, both of whom died in childhood and are depicted in the window. Please read the full study on the post Feathered Regulars
I asked the children to work to a scale that will be proportional to the full size cartoon I had brought on site and showed to them. All glass pieces I had cut for them were to a size they were invited to keep as there reference once they had selected the piece of glass.
KAE Films was hardly noticed by children all in the world of birds
a few birds sketches before a first intro to glass painting
Lamberts Glas many samples to guide their customers in their choices
Robert Christ _ Lamberts G
Very few 'no'_ many 'maybe'_ two 'Yes' it has to be
The choice of glass textures or colours was well advanced. The participants and I did some of it as the workshops took place.
I have to stay true to the meanings of the colour scheme we all discussed, even if I have to alter some of the choices made to keep the budget right.
I made all efforts to have our colours/textures/patterns harmony kept, at the same time as reducing the number of glass panes purchased to seven.
I have an allocated budget for this new order which also is inclusive of the special reduction because of the generous sponsorship by Lamberts Glas of this project.
I also have to bear in mind which glass I have in stock at my studio that will be used for this design.
I travelled to Germany by train at the lower cost of the European InterRail ticket .
If one travels from Shrewsbury to an airport, and an airport to Waldsassen, it is all much better to take the train with an afternoon/evening in London.
It was just about time to view the Paul Nash exhibition thinking of the next commission I discussed and had a meeting just before this journey. It is for the Royal Air Force Centenary Anniversary. Hopefully it will be the next #journal.
I worked on my iPad as I travelled, enjoyed chatting in German now and then with the passengers sitting by me.
The peak times of the Lamberts Glas day were my all inspiring hours at their very special heritage building and as I was in the train leaving Marktredwitz.
I had left the site all infatuated (nearly flying) by the privilege of the superb mouth blown glass I had purchased all advised by a knowledgeable gentleman sales director Manfred Mislik who placed it all in this 'trolley'.
my 'trolley' at its very early stage
The memories for ever
15th February 2017!
At my arrival
Robert Christ, Vice President, took me the closest possible to the masters of the trade all hard at work, mouth blowing and shaping the glass.
I filmed as I listened to Robert.
Fire, furnaces, agile moves of heavy metal rods, shaping, blowing, the synchronisation of bodies complementary one to an other, all fast, a rhythm and pace to keep. A glass blowing pace and agile power of the craftsmen I wished to keep as true as possible in the film.
It will be hard to cut my glass without the memory of what I followed all live for about two hours.
The glass has been delivered to my studio since then and the handling has never been so 'loving and measured'!
KAE Films edited my films. Guest Artist for the project #margaandcollections #artscouncilengland.
KAE Films is usually the one on site filming me in the making process of this stained glass project. (vimeo.com/user49985738)
PACE & PANES
For my departure
I had the delight of the company of a retired jolly lady who chose to come by me maybe because I smiled from my sit, my head turned towards her when she had entered the coach. She knew she had someone to make a conversation with.
She was as chatty as my granny Claudinette was, same vivacity of mind one will read in her cheeks. For the most, like my granny, her ancestors had worked in the trade of glass.
But even better in the skilful trade of mouth blown glass. She was confident, all very proud too, it had been a local skill for generations Czechs and Germans neighbours worked at together.
She knew all of the filmed skills I was displaying on my camera. Of the mouth blown glass technique for stained glass art, she approved all what I shared with her.
Her neighbour at home was a stained artist too! At Regensburg, we parted as if we'd known each other well. She waved goodbye behind the window when her train left the station, me waiting all in contempt for my next journey.
The job the character does for the RSPB speaks for a bond anyone may live with wild life UK birds, It refers to the lists the children and I worked from at the workshop A Touch of Glass.
To my surprise it inspired me for the cartoon's upper skies beyond the hills and the glass I had to select from the stocks at Lambert Glas.
Amy Liptrot's character of her novel The Outrun ( page 90, Canongate 2016 ) learnt to identify clouds and thinks:
"I become interested in a fairly recently discovered meteorological phenomenon: noctilucent cloud, literally 'night shining', the highest and one of the rarest types, drifting in the upper atmosphere. Unlike most cloud it is made of ice crystals rather than water droplets. It's usually invisible but just after the sunset around midsummer, in deep twilight, the tilt of the earth allows it to catch the last light of the sun. Sometimes known as 'space cloud', its first recorded observation was in 1885, tow years after the eruption of Krakatoa. It could be that the ice crystals have formed around specks of dust _ from volcanoes, meteors or space-shuttle exhausts.I like the idea of pollution creating something beautiful."
The character likes "the idea of pollution creating something beautiful".
First and foremost, many thanks to all who took part in the writing of the Grant for the Arts Application, our sponsor Lamberts Glas and all contributors in kind for their ongoing generosity until completion of the artwork. Many thanks to the Shrewsbury Museum for their invitation to create this artwork and their contribution in hosting or promoting events.
What have I been up to?
Before I got a few steps up the ladder for the full scale cartoon pinned on the largest drawing board of my studio, I wrote the project for real, all like a story telling addressed to unknown readers!
Previous posts of this blog were giving a foretaste of the project. I started a full size drawing to layout all the main lines or structures of lead in the philosophy of the artwork before we knew if the Grant Application would be a success.
Then, I had no doubt this project got its skeleton built and all jointed. It became obvious I was wishing to 'keep realist'.
No under-realism, hyper-realism, sur-realism...
The sculptural meaning of this work is very true, it is a social sculpture and commitment for many visitors each day of years to come in the Shrewsbury Museum.
Like the sundial sitting on the wall of the painting, days and shades are telling me how I am doing with the time scale of being and becoming.
I have chosen to fuse glass cuts, all recycled in the spirit of geological movement or bonding, fossilising.
Thinking of Margaret Rope's birds, with a day to day view from my window, I gathered in a section of the first cartoon all the birds that paused on the same tree I photographed through seasons.
Two local schools and young adults will contribute to the design or the making. They will have their say in the story told in a view on some mysterious inhabited corner of a town alike the painting I selected out of the Shrewsbury Museum collections Formal Garden in Dogpole. A chance for them, in the discussions we will hold, to record how they perceived their present and future given or handed out to them.
So, hopefully, more or less fortnightly I will spend many hours writing the stories to make this project loved; people intrigued will look forward to witnessing its progress and growth of its making. Beuysterous is one of the motivation for building this artwork with reference to trees or environment and the passion of my 20s for the artist Joseph Beuys.
The wording of the grant application was :
"The idea of this project is to draw on current Museum exhibition Heavenly Lights and develop further key themes and influences of me as artist (especially ‘social sculpture’), via the medium of stained glass, to encourage thinking of the Earth and its ethical and spiritual challenges, to capture a public synthesis of past/modern/future environmental quests (like Margaret Rope’s journey from Fine Arts, the social statements of the Arts & Crafts movement to the choice of a monastic life) and explore how these have, do, and will continue to influence our world.
By creating a memory of this process through “keep realist” visuals created by workshop participants and entered into the final permanent artwork, and making a film of the process from concept to installation, we aim to capture a shared contemplation of past, present and future and how ideas, choices and actions influence our world. We aim to promote a wider contemplation and appreciation of historical and contemporary stained glass working.
Through talks, tours and demonstrations, we will instill a deeper understanding of the history, themes and processes of stained glass & links between this contemporary piece and the work of Margaret Rope."
Like a very special offer, it includes three workshops
1_Cartoon & stained glass painting
Teens and adults x 12. Visit to museum & workshop in the artist’s studio. They will learn traditional glass painting techniques, create ‘keep realist’ visuals to be placed in the final artwork.
2_A Touch of Glass
Children aged 5 - 6 years x 20 in two groups. Visit to the exhibition, a workshop as intro to stained glass
3_ Mini Apprenticeship
Adults aged 17+ yrs x 6, drawn from harder to reach groups. Visit to the exhibition, interactive presentation of contemporary stained glass, studio visit.
1 full day per week x 3 weeks in studio: intro to glass cutting/leading, building their own small panel, and contributing to the final artwork.
and a guest artist!
KATIE ECCLESTON BOKOR
Katie has made a short 5-10 min film that runs alongside the Margaret Rope exhibition at Shrewsbury Museum. This film include previous footage of the main artist working on a commission in 2015 as well as recent filming of current projects. This provides an insightful look at the process of stained glass creation.
Katie will be creating a 1 hour long film, capturing the main artist’s story of creation through the design process, workshop activities, talks, tours and demonstrations, and the making of the stained glass artwork itself. This film will be submitted to the FIFMA International film festival.
It will show some of the remains or imprint of past geological times thinking of Darwin and his contemporaries' finds .
It will contribute to the discovery of Marga's life and artwork. It will keep the imprint of my anecdotal visual memories of a life in Shrewsbury as an artist
It will present fossilisation of items of our late C20th and early C21st life (choice made later with participants to activities run in the museum at the time of the exhibition)
After a few visits of Shrewsbury Museum, I now have a rucksack of adequate pieces of its collections to build my artwork. Glass slides of fossils:
The Shrewsbury Museum has in its collection a box of microscope slides of the time of Darwin and his contemporaries. It is not only interesting for the glass slides but also for the patterns of the cardboards holding the glass slides as well as the hand writing, the colours scheme.
In 2012, Dr Falcon-Lang found more "Inside the drawer where hundreds of beautiful glass slides made by polishing fossil plants into thin translucent sheets". "The fossils became "lost" because J. D. Hooker (1817-1911) failed to number them in the formal specimen register before setting out on an expedition to the Himalayas". British Geological Survey website
I wish to use the patterns of some of the glass slides fossils Dr Falcon-Lang found and some of the Museum's glass slides of the box on display.
Shrophire rocks/layers:
The agate gemstones cuts of nodules I chose earlier may be shaped with water jet technique to match the pattern of the landscape as drawn in the print chosen for display on the wall of the Hall of Rocks and Minerals.
agate gemstones cuts
the print on the walls of the Hall of Rocks and Minerals
Christian culture in Shrewsbury:
For the spiritual/medieval life of Shrewsbury, lessons and prayers would have been read during, otherwise silent, mealtimes from the pulpit when it formed part of the Abbey refectory.The pulpit close to the Abbey is also close to my stained glass studio and I always find it very neglected or lost in its surrounding of modern car parking. It was separated since 1836 from the Abbey Church by the London to Holyhead road.
The painting (Unknown painter, 1800-1860, SHYMS:FA/1991/193) in the Museum Collection has a mystery figure in the background who seems to be of black origins. Who was that person?
St Alkmund and St Julian churches are painted in two paintings of the collection of Shrewsbury Museum.
I had loved both at the time of my first visit of the Rowley's House Museum in 1999.
Those two churches are in the view I mention in the next piece in my rucksack.
Pnorama of Shrewsbury 1630 1658 oil on canvas SHRMS2009_00001
detail of the couple holding each other's hand
A Formal Garden in Dogpole, attributed to John Bowen, oil on canvas C18th
My view also has a wall and I wish to play with the display of sculptures and pots in the Dogpole painting, choosing the display of items along the old brick wall I view each day. Those items can be defined in a workshop with teenagers or adults thinking of a colour scheme that would work with the colours taken out of the rocks/minerals of Shropshire.
The Medieval Times as reference to the Arts & Crafts:
Thinking of the Medieval Gallery/stained glass medieval art collections of the Museum, a period of reference to the Arts & Crafts movement of which Marga's artwork belongs, the Medieval Gallery shows a collection of painted roundels on the theme of seasons.
The theme of seasons is important as humans for our relation to the Earth. Seasonal changes is the ingredient of many photos of a view of Shrewsbury from my home. I took photos and photos of this same view through seasons for a few years. St Alkmund and St Julian's churches are on the line of the horizon of that view. There, all most common birds have made their observatory from a birch tree and found a rest corner of an other tree closer to my home (left of the photo bellow) Birds are in Marga's windows of Shrewsbury Cathedral. Birds are part of many anecdotal memories to me and to all people.
one of the photos I took of the same view, winter 2016 on the day of storm Imogen, a strong bird at the top of the birch tree
So, Mt Erebus, a volcano named after the ship used by J.D. Hooker.
"In Greek mythology, Erebus was the son of the god Chaos, and his mother was Gaia, or Earth. Erebus was made of darkness and shadow, and he filled the corners of the world with his darkness."
A little bit more brain work for me to read again a few pages about the interaction volcanoes/corals.
It is in my rucksack as a Note...
brain coral
Marga, Water/Creation:
Shropshire underwater and forest fossils sculpted on glass or kiln formed on glass or with water jet abrasion?
Fossil_Shrewsbury Museum
Fossil_Shrewsbury Museum
Marga and monastic life:
As Marga chose to enter monastic life, I add in my rucksack the Effigy of Christ (Untraced Accession SHCMS: H.06498, Medieval Gallery)
It also recalls the artwork by Joseph Beuys whose work also had medieval references. In 1992 I had studied his social sculpture as part of my Fine Arts degree research titled Oeil Critique.
my research work on Joseph Beuys Crosses or Christ effigies
Shrewsbury Museum effigy of Christ
My effigy_ Earth on border line to crucifixion 1992
I will keep this 1992 artwork as an essential ingredient in writing of the window
a few birds sketches before a first intro to glass painting
they painted on a selection of coloured glass
