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Hi Patrick (cc. Sundial List):
Excuse me for not answering your letter sooner, but
I'm running at half speed since I'm recovering from a very bad bout of the
flu. (I spent all night Christmas Eve at the hospital emergency
room!)
The following sentence you wrote is of much
interest to me. You said:
"There are quite a few of us who have made
dials (like Alan Shuttleworth's)
which are dials made using pieces of commercially stained glass." Really! Are you sure? Where are they and who
are these people? I have absolutely no records of any British BSS
members who have made a stained glass sundial with their own
hands. If you know who they are, please tell me. Have you seen
their dials?
Most stained glass artisans will agree that the
term "stained glass" applies to both types of stained glass: painted/fired
glass as well as factory stained glass. Both types are
definitely stained glass. The glass is just stained using different
methods.
The Flowton Dial was hand painted
with vitreous paints and was kiln-fired. But if you look closely
at the photographs of it, you will see that it is not a working
sundial. It does not have a gnomon or a gnomon hole. Also, it was
not properly delineated since the six o'clock lines are obviously not at 90
degrees to the 12 o'clock line.
John
The Shuttleworth SGSPatrick Powers Message text written by "John Carmichael" >a stained glass sundial made by a Mr. Alan Shuttleworth. I assume it is a new creation that he designed and made with his own two hands. If this is true, then he is the first and only British member of the Society, past or present, who has made one. Hats off to him!< Not sure that's entirely true John. There is a terminology problem here with the phrase "stained glass dial" meaning two quite different things. There are quite a few of us who have made dials (like Alan Shuttleworth's) which are dials made using pieces of commercially stained glass - usually with the sizes of the pieces of glass chosen to represent the displayed time divisions and with these then assembled using lead came. However I agree that there are VERY few people (in the UK or elsewhere) who have PERSONALLY made REAL stained glass dials. That is dials where the staining, actually the painting, of each of the glass panels and the painting of the hour lines and the numerals on them have all been made using stains that are baked (sometimes several times) in some appropriate sequence in a kiln and in some cases with the panels requiring etching thereafter. The Flowton dial replica is (possibly) one such - though I doubt that even its maker had sufficient dialling knowledge to develop a dial for the exact declination of the window in Flowton Priory. Most real stained glass artists - like those who conserve and restore cathedral windows employ experts like Chris Daniel to develop the dial design which they then translate onto glass. You can get a most interesting insight into the work of such glass paint/staining artists from the BBC URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/multimedia/btp/york/york_ audio.shtml Which describes the work of one of the more famous studios in the UK - the York Glaziers' Trust. I'd love to have a go at this sort of work but the cost of the necessary kilns - especially those needed to make large panels like the Buckland Abbey (Francis Drake) dial by Chris Daniel which was worked in (I think) a single piece of glass by Goddard and Gibbs, are prohibitive and in any case for me, the time taken to acquire the knowledge and skills almost certainly far exceeds my most optimistic life span! Patrick |
