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Community
| Lark Rise School, Trowbridge, Wiltshire |
Lark Rise School is a special school for children with severe learning difficulties, situated in Trowbridge, County town of Wiltshire.
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We were approached by Suzy Robson, one of the staff at the school, to design, produce and install a stained glass window to go above the entrance of the school, as a memorial to a young girl called Hannah who had unfortunately passed away whilst a student at the school.
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The staff had a consultation, along with the parents of Hannah, and we were presented with the following brief:
The subject of the window was to be the elements - earth, air, fire, water. The colour scheme was to be based on a rainbow, (rainbows were always a popular image with Hannah). Some student involvement in the design was desired and the finished window should be something that could be used as an observational learning tool for present and future students.
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The following term, students were set a project of coming up with drawings based on the elements; each class focused on one of the elements. The resulting drawings, paintings and acetate collages were passed onto us and the design process began.
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Treating the whole window as part of the arc of a rainbow, using broad, large patches of colour, relevant pieces of the students' work were superimposed onto the design and with a process of picking up and losing lines they were incorporated into the appropriate parts of the design; moving from bottom right to top left the elements were ordered water, earth, air, fire. The idea of this was to hide the students' images so that they were not immediately discernable and the staff could encourage present and future students to find different creatures etc. in the window.
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Three separate designs were submitted and the final one was chosen which included passages of uncoloured glass to act as a counterpoint to the brightly coloured glass of the rainbow.
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The full size cartoon was drawn up, with the childrens' work included, a cut line was prepared and then the selection of glass began.
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The glass used was antique or cylinder mouth-blown glass and the window incorporated painted lines and tonal painting in the traditional stained glass manner; each piece being fired twice. The finished glass was then leaded, weatherproofed and polished-up ready for fitting.
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The two-light window was created in six sections and held into place with strengthening saddle bars. The resulting window adds brightness and colour to the entrance of the hall and the staff and children were delighted with the results; one comment being the lovely pools of colour thrown onto the floor when strong sunlight streams into the window.
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