Drawing : New wine in old bottles

Chagall: Stained glass window maquette

Stained glass is a very old art form and it is a vitally important conceptual idea as well as a physical process. On the one hand it involves line drawing. When designing for stained glass everything is reduced to line because the leading that holds the glass in place is a material that is designed to operate as a linear element. I. e. it is concerned with edges. In this case the edges of colour fields, which are themselves solid pieces of glass cut to shape. Stained glass is also drawing directly with light and as such as a medium it is a wonderful metaphor for the spiritual, the ephemeral and the fusion of light and life.

Chagall

It's not just about leaded lines holding on to clearly delineated edges of coloured glass. It can be, and Matisse is an example of an artist that used stained glass in this way, but more sophisticated uses often use a pocketed aesthetic, whereby the hard edges of the leading are integrated with more delicate drawing that is worked into the glass itself.

Matisse

If you look at the 19th century stained glass panel from 1845 below, you can easily see how the bird that represents the holy Ghost has been cut into segments by leading and then within the segments the detailing of feathers and the bird's face have been worked directly onto the glass by drawing with glass paint. Two different types of image making coming together in one artefact. You can see the same type of effect in the Burn Jones window. The face using a glass painting technique and some of the other details look as if they use a sort of paint scratching technique, whereby you coat the glass in black and scratch away the paint to reveal your form. The horizontal bar is a strengthening support, the window usually being attached to it using copper wire and the bar being set into the surrounding window frame.

Burn Jones

We are so used to stained glass being the religious medium of choice that we can forget that like all media it can be used to carry a variety of other content, but its association with the Christian religion does bring with it a certain set of values that can come into play when the subject matter is very non-Christian.
This is the case with Judith Schaechter's work. The techniques and references she uses are references to the religious art of stained glass, but her subject matter is instead very personal.

Judith Schaechter

Rather than stained glass windows she often uses light boxes, which you could argue is a contemporary secular equivalent. But she still uses the old stained glass craft to assemble the images, therefore she keeps the craft associations with windows, holding a balance between references from past traditions and new associations.

Judith Schaechter: My one desire

Sometimes she returns to old Bible tales, but gives them a contemporary makeover, the point being that old techniques and associated crafts can always be re-visited and because the time you live in is very different to when these ideas were initially visualised, new narratives or different approaches to the telling of old stories will always mean that the message is renewed.

Peter Young

Peter Young uses traditional techniques to build his own private worlds, and in this case he uses the ability of stained glass panels to also be very painterly.

I have looked at working in glass myself and as I have been working with a very old idea, the making of votives to help people externalise their inner aches and pains, thought I would explore the potential of glass to heighten a spiritual engagement with the idea.

Fused glass votives

Rather than using stained glass I have used fused glass, this is in some ways harder to control, but on the other hand the fusion between different glass types can suggest a state of metamorphosis.
It can feel as if these techniques are beyond the reach of most people, however if you research what is available in your area you will often find there are stained or fused glass adult education classes or private courses held by stained glass makers and as long as you have ideas suitable for conversion into glass, you can produce work with the help of a local craftsperson.
Above all it is wonderful to begin an association with a new material, it is like using a language for the first time, both a way of exercising your mind as well as building a relationship that enables you and the material to say something together in a way that has never been said before.

Coda:

If you like the idea of working in stained glass but have no resources to take it on you can always respond by making things cheaply. Raúl de Nieves was faced with a similar problem and for his show at the Whitney made a huge stained glass effect piece simply using coloured transparencies and black card.