St Columb Minor, St Columba
South aisle 3
Entries in grey are not obtained from documentary evidence, but are inferred from content, context, etc.
- Date of manufacture and insertion
- Number of lights
- 3
- Maker
- Cazalet, Mark
- Main subject
-
a. Sea, surfing. b. Celtic cross c. Keyboard, music - Tracery subject
-
A1. Goldfinch A2, A3 Globe, Blessed Virgin Mary and infant Jesus A4. Rose - Subject type
- Narrative
- Dedicatees
-
- Christopher Wilfrid Lucius Smith, son of the Revd Bernhard Smith and Hilda Smith, née Fleming, organist at St Columb Minor for over 35 years, died aged 83
- Raymond Smith, son of Christopher Smith
- Hilary Smith, daughter of Christopher Smith
- Notes
-
- Obituary of dedicatee, The Guardian, .
- Maker’s signature
- Description on maker’s website (third row down, centre).
- Mark Cazalet has provided us with some documents on the window’s design:
Glass window commission statement dated
The window is divided into three vertical lights with four smaller upper tracery sections, although due to the deep stone mullions these are only fully visible head on. The three main panels depict the central themes of music, colour, hope and faith. My intention is for these to form a single cohesive compositional design whose meaning entwine, rather than coexisting as separate symbols or representing individuals. The central theme of music is depicted visually both in symbols but more generally through the harmony, rhythm and counterpoint of the chromatic designs elements. The tone of the window is bright and upbeat, deploying strong saturated hues interspersed by clear glass and softer muted shades. Some of the details will be engraved into the glass, some painted; there will also be a fair amount of silver stain and a smaller amount of enamels used. The glass stock will range from mouth blown flash and solid colours to manufactured glasses with mixed hued streaks. I will make use of the ream or grain of the various glasses to add movement and form a cogent arrangement. This aspect is particularly hard to display in a flat design, but will be significant in the glazing selection.
The left hand panel is a prismatic spectrum of colour, a vision of the rainbow seen as a palette of hues spread out in an ascending arc. These saturated pure hues form new mixes as they blend. Creativity whether using paint, words or music is through practice a continual discovery of new chords. I want to depict an octave of colour as a continuity of shifting identities, never fixed but always in transition becoming something new. This is a simple universal analogy with our ever-expanding range of life experiences. Above the rainbow is a flash of pale blue to represent the heavens, peppered with stars, corresponding with the sun in the lowest register. The spectrum is contained, above and below, by the diurnal lights of our days. At the base of this panel is the surfer logo of the family company and key motif of Newquay’s water-sport renown. This figure is a visual hook, a way of drawing even the youngest eyes into the compositional dynamic. It starts a helix movement that pulls the viewer around the surface of the whole design and into the centre. Church art should provoke immediate interest from every visitor and this figure riding a wave is a reaching out perhaps to a wider community whose spirituality is experienced in the raw elemental sense of nature’s power than the pew.
The central panel contains a Cornish Celtic cross, whose lattice woven pattern sends out tendrils of new growth and hope, life through tradition rather than representing an arcane static symbol; this cross is strongly rooted in Kernow culture but depicted as a verdant tree-like growing form. Making a memorial is not an act of sealing over an event but re-membering, a constant process of recollection, shared by this family with all parishioners and visitors alike through the generations to come. It should point forwards through loving memory and grateful legacy. The dedication text will be placed beneath the cross and read:
In loving memory of Christopher Smith
organist of this parish for 35 years
and of Raymond & Hilary Smith
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
The Tempest, Act 3, scene 2The right hand panel has a looser musical interpretation, based on the stops and keyboard of the organ. It contains the necessary darker hues and shades of life that balance the prism, as well as the flag of Kernow. This part of the design has geometry and structure, and ordered lyricism in contrast with the organic flow of the other side. Music is an abstract form, its power is in its purity, free of literal interpretation. The patterns and movements of the keys and stops correspond with the angles and orientation of the rest of the design. At the bottom register there is a depiction of Porth Beach, as seen from the cliff top beneath Raymond’s flat looking over towards Porth Island and Newquay headland.
The top register of the window has four simple depictions of elements connected with the Chris, Raymond and Hilary.
A robin singing on a bough, St Piran, the Madonna, and a white rose. These small lancets are visually quite hard to see and although significant chromatically to the overall impact are on a relatively small scale, being only 10–12 cm wide each. I will employ flash glass in each of these sections enabling me to introduce light and strong colours simultaneously being interrupted by the minimum of leads.
The placement of the ferramenta, or external bars that the stained glass is tied into will await any final shifts in the tracery design but will certainly in places be angled to run with the movement. There will be no external grill or secondary glazing as this deters but never stops vandals and looks awful!
Response dated to the family’s comments on the initial design
Dear Jean, Cathy and Rosie,
Thank you all for your extremely thoughtful and thorough notes on my preliminary design. Forgive me if I have sat on them for a while, it has been an exceptionally busy time with the end of the academic year and my solo exhibition opening. I also needed a period of quietness to reflect on and process all you have said. While much of what was written is straightforward and wholly uncontroversial it was layered. In some aspects of the commentary there is unanimity and in others there are divergent views, which I will need clearer specific guidance on before proceeding.
A preliminary design always requires modification whether that comes from the client or artist. So I have no anxiety about making changes. However there is a core of the design that I believe is good, uplifting and joyous and would be reluctant to change. But that does not mean that many elements might not be altered nor the emphasis shifted in stylistic terms of legibility. Before launching ahead with another iteration of the design it would be good to refine further the principal directions you wish me to take.
What comes out of the next design I would like to discuss with you all face to face and at the same time, so that there is a definitive collaborative discussion. If there was an unevenness in the initial design it perhaps came from me genuinely trying to please three slightly different voices in my head during the design process. Reviewing your comments I feel sure that with a little more focus in a couple of areas I will have that singularity of vision I need to meet your wishes.
Lets proceed from the general to the specific responses
Paramount for me is that the overall effect of the colour and dynamic movement of the design elicit an instinctive celebratory response from each viewer; drawing people in to look closer and having enough mystery to keep giving back over decades. I am delighted that you all feel the design in general terms has achieved this.
However I hear that the Smith side of the story requires more articulation particularly on the right hand panel involving a greater reference to music. Could the actual St Columb Minor keyboard or perhaps even your father’s hands playing the organ be the answer? I agree that this could be far better than the abstract references. If so could I have a photo of the organ’s keyboard (including stops) and if possible your father’s hands while actually playing it …. That would be amazing.
There was a range of responses to the balance between recognizably figurative elements and more abstract interpretations. I am certain that the organizing of the whole window into a roughly circular outer movement cut through with diagonals is right for the tall thin shapes, but this rhythm can carry the suggested changes to elements. I deliberately undercooked the definition of the drawing in order to make the colour pattern work, greater emphasis on the legibility of specific forms and details is of course possible, as long as they work together and not become an illustrational vignettes.
There are comments about putting less into the design yet also including more elements, and making some areas less squashed but also it being less bitty. This is a delicate balance and you must decide if particular previous requests are no longer necessary. Playing with the relative proportion of areas is a good idea i.e. increasing the Porth beach scene by reducing the area above it and incorporating the keyboard. But I would be sad if the small family figures on Porth beach went as they will give a sense of scale and drama to the whole.
One of the insurmountable problems with paint on paper design is that there is no materiality of glass nor shifting light coming through, it just looks flat. Stained glass ultimately depends on the use of physical material and the leading. Nearly all the comments you made were understandably concerned with motifs and legibility, whether the icons could be read and understood. A good window, particularly the Medieval, operates through the material of transparent coloured glass & the lead lines and then the narrative. I completely understand the desire to pin down the reading of each area but the window must read as a visual whole first and then the individual components will sing.
Specifics area by area
- Central panel
-
The Celtic cross is the heart of the design, I deliberately underplayed its three-dimensionality so that it didn’t dominate, it can easily be made more emphatic in the design, but to overstress its structure in the finished window risks isolating it and freezing the movement across the window. I am perfectly happy to give it more volumetric form and texture as long as you trust me in the actual glass to adjust that weighting to suit the whole window.
The red heart was not there in the previous version so I am happy to revert to a different hue, if you all agree.
The new text is great and putting a dedication date on the window is an excellent idea. Jean said she didn’t want the lettering hand written. Please tell me what you mean or would prefer, stencilled? Or is it about letter formation in which case I think that is a scale issue on the design and it would when enlarged threefold be resolved.
- Left hand panel
-
I really like this panel; it starts the unifying circular rotation across the design, which is visually and symbolically significant, describing both a rainbow spectrum and palette of hues. I could try adding brushes but fear it would just add more bitti-ness and feel a better place would be in the top lights.
The surfer logo is taken directly from the family company sticker, which was given to me when Rosie and Jean came to my studio, the design on the Logo is even more stylized. Do you want me to soften it further, as in depart from the sticker motif? Please remember the scale design is not what you will get on the finished window it is a greatly reduced version so the handling is only suggestive.
- Right hand panel
-
I think the family responses to this side are fair but which way to go? I could use an image of the keyboard from the actual organ your father played on or perhaps his hands actually playing it. I like the idea of that. The only problem is that a keyboard is awfully geometrically rigid and working it in literally is harder to flow with the wider design, but I can try. Is this what you want? Cathy mentioned liking the abstract qualities these would obviously diminish on this side.
Taking out the St Piran’s flag is easy, it was there in order to introduce richer darker tone to balance the saturated hues on the other side and give weight to the lower register. Something else might chromatically have to do that. Also the vague floating cross shape above it, they are gone.
Enlarging the Porth Beach view is a good idea and again it could be rendered more recognizably for the design but in the glass I will want to see how strong the recessive space can go without becoming an isolated zone. The blue triangular shape was too intense and the cliffs too week adjusting the emphasis is easy.
- The four top lights
-
Removing St Piran and Rosie’s Madonna is easy, they might have been helpful in terms of defending the design against any comment that the window lacked religious iconography for the wider worshipping community and Diocese. Do you want abstract panels as Cathy suggests or keep the white rose and robin (or Goldfinch) and add a set of painter’s brushes/palette? One panel could have a treble and bass clef if you wanted to strengthen the musical references. This needs editorial input from you all, I have no strong feelings. You could have two birds flanking a white rose with a palette and brushes or one bird with a rose, brushes and musical motifs …. The existing colours were designed to carry the hues of the greater design around the top lights and I would continue with this instinct to see the whole surface as a unity, but I will look again at adjusting this.
- Additions
-
Rosie wants more waves and Sea. Jean wants more music; keyboard and hands, clefs, Palette and brushes. Cathy suggests possibly Dad playing the organ and Mum gardening
I hope this summary does justice to the different viewpoints on the design. If you could help me by discussing together my thoughts and requests for assistance on specific elements I am sure a beautiful resolution of the whole is closer than you might feel. I do have one more request; as tempting as it is to seek alternative views on the next design, please resist going to friends for advice or opinions on the design unless they are first fully acquainted with what the other family members have asked for, know the church and the setting of the window and the other glass it is trying to work with. The danger is that I start to try to work for a wider committee of opinions that those I am already, and after you are hopefully contented with the design it has another two levels of process to go through where others will probably ask for changes too. Satisfying the family is my real aim, then and only then others.
I much look forward to your thoughts and reworking the design.
All very best Mark
Extracts from the Design Statement and Contract dated
Brief: to design, fabricate and install a complete new set of stained glass lights, to fill the first bay of the south aisle to the left of the main porch door. The new windows must take into account the fine existing stock of Victorian glass and the sensitive nature of this significant interior and the architectural heritage of the building.
Theme: The window is to be a celebration of the lives of Jean’s husband Christopher, son Raymond and daughter Hilary; father, brother and sister of Rosie and Cathy, and respectively father of Sophia and mother of Stephen. The memorial window will include references to each of the individuals in their loves and lives rooted in the area, these specific iconographic elements also weave into a universal celebration of creativity and nature as seen specifically through music, painting and cultural legacy of Celtic spirituality. These elements were specified by individual members of the three generations of the family, including:
- Celtic cross
- Musical references to the organ and painter’s brushes
- Rainbow or spectrum of colour and brushes
- Beach and waves
- Surfer based on the family firm logo
- Bird (Goldfinch) singing
- Rose
- Madonna and child within the world
- Dedication text
- Porth beach
Christopher was St Columb Minor Church organist for thirty five years as well as being a gifted and committed lifelong painter.
The right hand panel: an interpretation of keyboards and stops of his organ as seen as a visualization of notes and chromatic chords. At the base the family walk across Porth beach.
The central panel: The organizing icon of the window is based on a Cornish Celtic cross depicted with the weave of the pattern still growing or loose to suggest an organic legacy rather than a monolithic memorial. The inscription will use the text shown but written in Jean Smith’s copperplate handwriting, traced by me, so that her dedication is in her own hand. Beneath the cross are a quiver of brushes to carry over the painter theme relating both to Christopher and all our gifts of creativity.
The left hand panel: to balance the musical theme of the right hand panel is a spectrum of hues. The visual and auditory sides form a compositional arch over the central Celtic cross. At the base are surfers, an important element in Newquay’s contemporary identity and the logo of the family backpacker business. Including surfers enjoying the sea is an important means of reaching out to visitors and younger church members providing a reminder that our gratitude to God includes leisure and respect for nature’s power. There is a sun to balance the moon at the top of the music window, a reference to the diurnal rhythms and the promise of God’s providence in Genesis and the psalms.
The upper lights: Although small these four openings offer the possibility of providing an important coda to the main themes through employing the contrasting process of glass engraving. On the right is a rose on the left a goldfinch singing and in the centre a Madonna Mundi, Our Lady and Christ as an image of maternal nurturing, hope and wholeness. The globe in which she sits holding Christ is the world over which the continents will be seen.
Aware that the DAC Diocesan Advisory Committee glass advisor has stressed that the Diocese do not want to see a replication of the adjacent window in bitty elements nor simplistic signs scattered across the surface I have set all the narrative parts into a strong and cohesive compositional dynamic. The colours play across the surface in an abstract relationship between the panels. Care has been taken to organize the specified symbolic elements as a whole thematic unity, reading as a single cogent visual experience.
Process: To employ traditional leaded light techniques with painted and stained glass from various sources of mouth blown and contemporary manufacture methods. The upper lights will have panels both stained and engraved by hand. Removal of the existing window and installation of the new window included.
Mark will work with Benjamin Finn of St Peter’s Stained Glass Studio, Wickham Bishops, Essex, CM8 3LA—who will cut, lead and provide the workshop space and technical requirements for firing and fabrication of the windows.
Extract from e-mail dated
The men in the water on the bottom are Jean’s husband and son playing in the sea off Porth beach with bowler hats and car steering wheel. Very sadly Jean’s son (Kathy and Rosie’s brother) died young leaving a daughter Jean’s Granddaughter who really wanted her favourite image of her dad and grandad messing about in the sea. I felt that this was a wonderful touch as it adds a strange surreal element so obviously a personal memory yet typical of us all on holiday or relaxed with family …. The Goldfinch and rose were both family symbols, favourite bird and flower but also have historic Christian associations. Goldfinch; a sign of the soul being in God’s hand or the resurrection. Rose; a mystical symbol for the Virgin.
In Loving Memory of
Christopher Smith—died
Organist of this Parish Church for 35 years
and of his children Raymond and Hilary
and all the Smith Family
ADMG Ad Dei Maiorem Gloriam (For the greater glory of God)
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
Tracery.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
A1. Goldfinch
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
B1, B2. Globe, Blessed Virgin Mary and infant Jesus.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
A2. Rose.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
a. Sea, surfing. The two partially submerged figures are Christopher and his son Raymond playing in the sea off Porth beach.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
a detail.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
b. A Celtic cross and, at the bottom, artist’s paint brushes.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
b detail.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
c. Keyboard, music.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
c detail.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …
MJ Cazalet
The maker’s signature and date of manufacture of the window.
High-resolution image will start to load shortly …