Hempstead Glass Panel for HM Queen Elizabeth ll
It was back in early March that the Platinum Jubilee first sat round a table to formulate a collection of activities to mark the occasion of the Queen’s 70th anniversary on the throne, and that one project should be a lasting memory amongst the festivities of the weekend and that the church would be a great location for it.
The consensus was that the project should involve local people and local craftsmanship , and Katie Lynn of Molten Wonky was asked and accepted !
Ideas swiftly followed that it should be a piece of glass suitable to be stood freestanding in the church in front of a window, almost as a piece of modern stained glass, created by everyone in the village being invited to physically put glass (in chip form) into the design.
And so, the idea was born.
By inviting the village to be part of the project, we needed to arrange how that contribution could be done safely, and then record who had laid each square. With children involved as well, even 70 squares may not be enough?
But you couldn’t just have a piece of glass - it needed to stand in something - it needed to be set at a height that the sunlight through the window would cast through the glass to bring the colours to life.
We were exceptionally lucky that Dave Boreham, offered a beautiful piece of oak that his late father had given him, to form a stand to lift the glass to the required height, and we were equally delighted when David Dunn, accepted fashioning the oak into a suitable base.
Meetings took place, designs were considered and altered, measurements were taken, and aspects considered all before we assembled here on the 5th June, the Sunday of the Jubilee weekend, to make our donations and put our glass crumbs in the squares.
It was quite a special moment to have reached that far, and many of you seemed equally as excited that we were creating something unique – something for Hempstead – and something permanent. In the light of the passing of Her Majesty just three months later, it now seems all the more poignant.
Everyone was extremely generous with their donations on the day and the money raised has been spent on some of the design time and materials, and the plaques and recordings of the names involved which you will see placed adjacent to the panel.
We knew that the finished piece would be a modest size as it needed to fit into a kiln. In the scale of the church here, that is so, but some of the world’s most beautiful things are in small form, so think of this as our ‘Fabergé egg’ if you like.
Julie Jarman
