WWW.GLASSPAINTER.COM

ARCHITECTURAL GLASS ARTIST

Welcome to this new version of my website.

This website attempts to show the range of work I have undertaken. As the name implies, my main focus is on glass.
I took the name Glasspainter to describe what I do as a means of a separation from the, in those days, stained glass artists who tended to be hobbyists.
In our time the name we tend to use is architectural glass artists which is descriptive of what artists like me do. However, I still like this glasspainter name, it is an ancient profession.
Over the years and in most of my projects it is a combination of acid etching and glass painting that make these works. The main glass used is Lamberts Flashed glass.
In recent years and in recent projects I have discovered the delights of glass fusing. This utilises Bullseye Glass which was conceived as glass that can be fused, melted together.

A CATHEDRAL for KERICHO 2022

for 10 years I was involved as lead artist and part of the architectural design team to create a new cathedral for the newly formed diocese of Kericho in Kenya. This full length video shows the building of the cathedral and the creation of the artworks..

IMAGE VIEWER

detail -govanhill project
old testament rose window - shanghai holy trinity
adam and eve window - shanghai holy trinity

one of the domaine mechtildshausen windows
falklands war memorial
windows for private villa

detail from hope chapel
detail - glasgow cathedral millennium window
the castle, pinehurst

still room - glenmorangie
detail - gethsemane window - newlands
detail - gethsemane -shanghai holy trinity

holy trinity window - hermannsacker
detail - pibroch windows - piping centre
burning bush and pentecost - dumbarton

before creation - queens park synagogue
detail - private villa - dubai
detail - bi-centenary windows - strathclyde

List of Projects

ABOUT ME

I have worked with so many different materials and methods over the last years that glass artist doesn't really cover what I do anymore. I tend to think of myself as a commissioned artist. I don't really mind what kind of project I am designing for, if I understand the material and techniques, I can design for it. The best example of this, is for the recent Kenya project. Also due to this project, I have become involved with film.
As can be seen from these projects, I don't work to any kind of style. I make what I consider to be suitable for a project. I am interested in all methods of creating mainly architectural works. For the Kericho project, I have worked with bullseye glass and float glass to create glass relief sculptures. Terra-cotta tiles, to create the pattern on the roofs. Clay and silicone and plaster, to create the bronze relief sculptures. Natural stone, to create the mosaic, soap stone, for the statuary. This project has brought me to film making.

RECENT NEWS

In the last few years, I have been very active in the Kericho Project and therefore not getting involved much with other projects. Fairly recently, I submitted designs for the Pisa Baptistry project, sadly, not successful. I have completed a set of small windows for a church in Hermannsacker, in Germany. These were designed about ten years ago, but now finally made. These just received a Codaworx Merit Award.
The most recent project is an exploration of the relationship between music and colour. One example of this can be seen above listed as glass piping window.

A new video placed in my Youtube channel also on vimeo. Here I talk about the new window based on Bagpipe Music for a Scottish House. The work comprises four bagpipe tunes transcribed into glass using a system I have recently developed.

A short video, more slide show, about the window I made for The Castle - in Pinehurst. NC. This is a tremendously complex work utilising mainly multi-layered glass etching.

The first complex video I made. It shows the process from design to installation of the two rose windows for the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Shanghai. Three facades are now completed for this ongoing project.

Glasgow Cathedral Millennium Window Revisited May 2016

It is interesting to look at this work again after 16 years.
One of the many lovely thing about glass is that it ages very slowly. The window is as was, so is the building. Things made to endure. Sadly, we age much quicker.
Often, when I see modern windows form the last twenty, thirty years, I look to see how they now feel in their environment. Sometimes, things which looked great at the time they were installed, now look awkward either because of the the techniques used or the design concept which was maybe fashionable at the time. Even the glass world has its fashions as new techniques and approaches become possible. My own philosophy for work in historical buildings is that it is better to be appropriate rather than fashionable... read more

Trinity Windows - St. Mauritius - Hermannsacker.
A set of three small windows on the Theme of the Trinity for St. Mauritius, in Hermannsacker. A delightful set of abstract, highly etched windows.
These are the most recently completed works of mine in Germany. They were designed around 10 years ago, but the project stalled. I was finally able to undertake these windows in February and they were installed and dedicated during Pentecost 2017.
As with most of my works, They were made at the Derix Studios in Taunusstein.
This lovely project was awarded a Codaworx Merit Award 2019

KERICHO PROJECT

This is a detail from one of the stations of the cross panels. These are relief sculpted panels made entirely of Bullseye Glass, there is no painting involved. This is a method I have been developing over the last years and has been the approach used in the Kericho Panels.
These panels were made with Florence Wangui who has been the major artist of the Kericho Project.
This index shows images of the various artworks of this amazing project.

detail from John Paul stained glass window design for Pisa Baptistry

Pisa Baptistry

This is a link to the Pisa Baptistry Designs Index.
We, myself and the Derix Studio, were one of the selected studios to design a new set of four windows for the Baptistry in Pisa. This index shows what I presented for this project. Unfortunately, our concept was not selected. It did however give me an opportunity to design in this figurative Neo-Gothic style.

New York University Press

Over the last few years some of my windows from the Queens Park Synagogue , Jewish Festivals Series, have been used as cover images for their series on Judaism.
It is lovely to see these windows used as images letting them be seen in a different use and setting. They have a life of their own now.

ACCEPT BITCOIN

Within the last year, I became aware of the emergence of Bitcoin and some other crypto currencies. Since then, I have noticed the similarity of this development and the beginning of the internet.
I don't really expect anyone to order a project using Bitcoin or one of the other major digital currencies, but I want to register my support for the concept.