We are excited to have started a very unusual project – we are restoring and repurposing some panels made up of fragments of medieval stained glass which were originally from Canterbury Cathedral. This is pretty extraordinary for Vancouver; it’s fair to say that we don’t have a lot of medieval glass here! The oldest stained glass that John restored in the UK was 13th century, and he had English Heritage watching over his shoulder. This type of window where fragments of stained glass from multiple windows were put together in a new window, was referred to within the studio where we apprenticed as a “fruit salad”. Perhaps not a very respectful term for such historic glass.
In this case the church has had these panels in the basement for many years. The medieval glass requires careful and gentle cleaning with distilled water and cotton wool, and we need to remove the textured machine made glass that makes up the rest of the panel. We will then incorporate the medieval sections within two new windows, creating additional areas with mouth blown glass and painting techniques that will combine historic with contemporary in an harmonious design that will commemorate the Centenary of St John’s Shaughnessy.