News

The Stained Glass Centre Wins Heritage Lottery Support

The Stained Glass Centre, based in the retired historic church of St Martin-cum-Gregory in York’s busy Micklegate, has secured £8,600 from the United Kingdom’s Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) for a project called ‘Mobilising our Supporters, Empowering our Friends’. The project will involve volunteers to launch a new Friends organisation and develop a programme of activities, once again making this ancient building accessible to the community after many decades of closure.

Fig. 1. Keith Barley, conservation advisor to the British CVMA, at the Stained Glass Centre.

Fig. 1. Keith Barley, conservation advisor to the British CVMA, at the Stained Glass Centre.

Giving new life to one of York’s finest medieval buildings, the Stained Glass Centre is developing as a national resource for the discovery and interpretation of stained glass. St Martin-cum-Gregory has long been a destination for those interested in this fragile medium. As the Stained Glass Centre, the church is developing into a venue in which residents, students and visitors can explore, participate in and learn more about one of the most beguiling of crafts, one that continues to be central to the heritage, culture and economy of the city of York. Now that the future of the building has been secured for public use, a programme of events is bringing people and new life back into the building.

Job Opportunity

The project will enable the Stained Glass Centre to employ a part-time development officer to work with volunteers and supporters in developing a varied and exciting programme of events, lectures, classes, performances and tours based in one of York’s most historic ‘lost’ buildings. A new Friends organization will be launched, and training and internship opportunities will be available.

With the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Stained Glass Centre is seeking to employ a part-time (0.4 fte) development officer for one year to assist it in achieving three goals:

1. to organise a database of supporters and friends and to establish a formal Friends group able to assist in the Centre’s growing programme of events and activities
2. to increase public access to the building
3. to implement a media plan

The successful applicant will be York-based, self-motivated, well-organized, an excellent communicator, and highly computer literate. A knowledge of historic stained glass and/or medieval architecture would be an asset.

Salary: in the region of £7500 for 15 hours per week
Closing date: 31 December 2013

For further information and details of how to apply, please contact Sarah Brown, sarah.brown@york.ac.uk

Dictionary of Medieval Latin completed!

Fig. 1. Inscription from the Great East Window at York Minster, from the panel depicting the Angels with the Winds and the Seal (Revelation VII, 1-3): ': Nolite : / : nocere : / terre : mari : nec : arb/[o]ribus :' ('Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees').

Fig. 1. Inscription from the Great East Window at York Minster, from the panel depicting the Angels with the Winds and the Seal (Revelation VII, 1-3): ‘: Nolite : / : nocere : / terre : mari : nec : arb/[o]ribus :’ (‘Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees’).

The British Academy has published the final part of its monumental Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, which contains more than 58,000 entries in nearly 4,000 pages.  The dictionary, the most comprehensive study ever produced of Latin in medieval Britain, has been completed a century after the project began.

Over 200 researchers have worked on the project, and the dictionary is based entirely on original and systematic research of a massive array of British Latin material, including poetry, sermons, chronicles, scientific texts, legal documents, state records, accounts and letters. The dictionary covers the vocabulary of the Latin language used in Britain and by Britons between AD 540 and 1600. It spans 15 volumes, the first of which came out in 1975. The project’s history will be narrated in a display in the Bodleian Library, Oxford until 16 February 2014.

For more information see the website.

American Glass Guild Conference 2014

Fig. 1. Bryn Athyn Cathedral © Laura Tempest

Fig. 1. Bryn Athyn Cathedral © Laura Tempest

The American Glass Guild conference will be held next year on 26–30 June 2014 on the campus of Bryn Athyn College in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, with access to Glencairn Museum and Bryn Athyn Cathedral.

The conference will present papers on the many different aspects which those working in the field are faced with, including new design, technique and materials, conservation, history of the medium and its practitioners, and best teaching practices. The event will feature lectures, demonstrations, panels and workshops. See the website for more information, and the blog for a dramatic promotional video!

The Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass Award for Excellence

Applications are being invited for the Worshipful Company of Glaziers Award for Excellence, a forty-week enhanced work experience programme for a graduate of a stained-glass course, or a candidate who has taken a course in further education, or has undertaken long-term training in a studio. The programme is tailored to the needs and interests of the award winner, and offers the opportunity for further training in a variety of studios, under the guidance of experienced professional designer/makers, top-level craftsmen, and conservators. The award emphasizes the development of practical skills in a working environment. Placements with European studios are usually included. The award usually runs from September to June.

For more information, including important funding, application and interview details, see the website.

Patrick Reyntiens: Catalogue of Stained Glass

A major study of the stained glass artist Patrick Reyntiens (OBE) has been published.

Fig. 1. Patrick Reyntiens Catalogue of Stained Glass

Fig. 1. Patrick Reyntiens Catalogue of Stained Glass

Written by Libby Horner, an authority on the work of Reyntiens, the book fully catalogues, county by county, his ninety-eight major commissions, including his famous work at Coventry Cathedral in collaboration with John Piper. It also covers his major overseas work, and sixty autonomous panels. The book includes a preface by Sir Roy Strong, an introduction by Frances Spalding, and an afterword by the artist himself, a glossary of terms, notes on recurring themes and symbolism, a tabulated biography and an extensive bibliography. Publication coincided with an event at the Goldmark Gallery, Uppingham on the 23 November.

Patrick Reyntiens: Catalogue of Stained Glass can be purchased here or ordered on amazon.co.uk.

BSMGP Events

Spring Conference

The British Society of Master Glass Painters will hold its spring conference on 7–8 April 2014 at t Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close, London Bridge, SE1 9DD. The conference, in association with The Worshipful Company of Glaziers, is entitled ‘Stained Glass – The State of the Art’ and will focus on the politics and ethics of conservation, and the restoration and design of new stained glass in historic buildings.

Subjects will include innovations in protective glazing; the recent commission for Westminster Abbey; stained-glass conservation in the context of the broader conservation profession; designing new windows; the ethics of conservation; contemporary glass art; environmental conditions and their impact on conservation; the Stained Glass Repository; and the future of stained-glass design. Papers will be given by representatives from Icon, SPAB, CBC, AABC and the National Trust, as well as by artists and architects.

For more information, booking and the full programme, see the BSMGP website or the Facebook page.

Spring Lecture

Fig. 1. The Battle of Carnival and Lent, Judith Schaechter, from www.claireoliver.com

Fig. 1. The Battle of Carnival and Lent, Judith Schaechter, from www.claireoliver.com

The spring lecture will be held on Monday 7 April at Glaziers Hall, 9 Montague Close, London Bridge, SE1 9DD, as the evening session of the spring conference. The lecture will be given by Judith Schaechter, an independent stained-glass artist, and is entitled ‘Nothing Personal’. It will explore the artist’s thoughts on stained glass as a mode of transformative experience. The evening will begin at 6pm with a drinks reception, followed by the lecture at 6.45pm, and supper from 8pm. See the website for more details.

 

Fifteenth-Century Altar Screen Restored in the Vale of Glamorgan

An intricate altar screen dating from the fifteenth century in St Cadoc’s at Llancarfan near Barry has been restored. The restoration of the screen marks the end of a four-year major conservation project, during which medieval wall-paintings of St George and the dragon and the Seven Deadly Sins have also been found.

The church dates from 1200, but stands on a site where there was a monastery from at least 650AD. By the ninth century, Llancarfan was flourishing, but the monastery did not survive the Norman invasion. Experts are unsure how the altar screen came to reside in the church, with one theory being that the screen was moved to Llancarfan in the mid-1600s from elsewhere, when it was already 200 years old. The screen has now been restored to its original gilded colours in a lively, polychromatic scheme.

The work was funded by local trusts, Cadw (Wales’s heritage body), and the Heritage Lottery Fund, and has allowed the church’s medieval wall-paintings to be unveiled along with the restoration of the screen.

More information on this restoration project can be found online here.

‘Tudor Monastery Farm’ Features Stained Glass

Vidimus readers may find a small segment of the BBC programme ‘Tudor Monastery Farm’ interesting, as historians and archaelogists explore Tudor techniques of lead and stained glass window production. The episode is available to watch online until Christmas.