This new stained glass window was commissioned in celebration of the 300th Anniversary of St. Michael’s Church, Grimsargh and also in loving memory of Nicholas James Cowell.
Our client’s brief was to design a window that included references to the Holy Spirit (specifically in the form of a white dove) and to the church itself. Also to introduce some form and colour (but not too much colour as to overly darken an already dark corner of the church) and to compliment the contemporary style of the 1960’s window adjacent to it. What at first appeared to be a fairly straight forward brief actually turned out to be something of a challenge. Indeed, the first proposal was eventually scrapped and replaced.
As a reference to the church and the 300 years during which people have continued to worship in that location, we included a section of a beautiful carved stone finial which can be found at the apex of the east end of the nave roof. On consulting the client and PCC with this aspect of the design, the collective response was; “We had no idea it was even there!”
Having completed and installed the commission following around 5 months work, we were incredibly happy to receive the following email from the client:
“We are absolutely delighted with the window and want to thank you all again for all your hard work and effort with it. I know you struggled with the design but in the end you came up with something spectacular. There was a PCC meeting last night which should have been in school but at the last minute was moved to church where all were able to look at the window for the first time. They thought it was fantastic! I had an email from one of the PCC members later who wrote, “I think the window is truly beautiful. It illuminates the dark corner in a deeply spiritual way…..as if God’s love and spirit are coming down to us ……very special.”
Our images show the completed window in its new setting on the north elevation of the churches nave, our design proposal, various stages of the production process including preparing the full size cartoon, glass painting & leading up the panel and finally a photo of the carved stone finial.
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