WORDS BYTamsin Abbott
ARTWORK BYTamsin Abbott
Song of the Earth
The art of stained glass is the perfect medium for storytelling and for illuminating the sacred and the spiritual.
It is a unique material to work with— incomplete without a light source. The finest source to truly bring the glass alive is natural daylight. The rays of the sun breathe life into silica, casting glorious colour shadows into the interior landscape of the building within which it sits. As an artist, most of my creations are intended to bring colour, enchantment, and story into the home.
I have been fortunate to work with glass for over twenty-five years, and have always done so intuitively, creating "stories" in the glass, influenced by my everyday rural domestic life, as well as drawing inspiration from myth, folklore, fairytale, and the world around me. I am glad to have been able to create art for domestic settings, bringing this powerful medium into people’s homes. In a deep sense, “home” is always integral to what I do. For me, the sacred and the material are inextricably intertwined, and there is nothing more illustrative of this than my idea of home.
The glass panels I create become windows, or portals, into other worlds. Often, the idea of home is central to these worlds—whether it be a garden, or a cosy cottage infused with golden light in the middle of a dark woodland; perhaps a mysterious but welcoming doorway in the heart of a tree trunk; a bear with her cubs in her den; or a fox sleeping within the exposed roots of a tree under a starry night full of spirits.
I think of a home that includes all folk and all creatures of the world—a place where they can be with their young, a space of safety. The idea of home as sanctuary, as refuge from the outside world, as a place where one’s heart beats more slowly, and where one is surrounded by love and contentment, is the most immediate sense of home that informs my work.
I sometimes illustrate this directly—for example, drawing two people working together in a garden—but more often, I present relationships that are inferred or hidden, or that take the form of an animal companion. A home is simply the place where memories and contentment create a haven of security.
As a child, I grew up in the cities of Liverpool and Derby, but it was always my dream to live in a small cottage in the countryside, surrounded by children and animals. I did eventually achieve a more realistic version of this dream, but my original fantasy remains a recurring theme in my work.
It is a unique material to work with— incomplete without a light source. The finest source to truly bring the glass alive is natural daylight. The rays of the sun breathe life into silica, casting glorious colour shadows into the interior landscape of the building within which it sits. As an artist, most of my creations are intended to bring colour, enchantment, and story into the home.
I have been fortunate to work with glass for over twenty-five years, and have always done so intuitively, creating "stories" in the glass, influenced by my everyday rural domestic life, as well as drawing inspiration from myth, folklore, fairytale, and the world around me. I am glad to have been able to create art for domestic settings, bringing this powerful medium into people’s homes. In a deep sense, “home” is always integral to what I do. For me, the sacred and the material are inextricably intertwined, and there is nothing more illustrative of this than my idea of home.
The glass panels I create become windows, or portals, into other worlds. Often, the idea of home is central to these worlds—whether it be a garden, or a cosy cottage infused with golden light in the middle of a dark woodland; perhaps a mysterious but welcoming doorway in the heart of a tree trunk; a bear with her cubs in her den; or a fox sleeping within the exposed roots of a tree under a starry night full of spirits.
I think of a home that includes all folk and all creatures of the world—a place where they can be with their young, a space of safety. The idea of home as sanctuary, as refuge from the outside world, as a place where one’s heart beats more slowly, and where one is surrounded by love and contentment, is the most immediate sense of home that informs my work.
I sometimes illustrate this directly—for example, drawing two people working together in a garden—but more often, I present relationships that are inferred or hidden, or that take the form of an animal companion. A home is simply the place where memories and contentment create a haven of security.
As a child, I grew up in the cities of Liverpool and Derby, but it was always my dream to live in a small cottage in the countryside, surrounded by children and animals. I did eventually achieve a more realistic version of this dream, but my original fantasy remains a recurring theme in my work.
It is as much tied to childhood longing as anything else, but I know my work speaks to others who share this desire. Whether this is some ancestral urge that pre-dates the mass migration of humans to towns and cities since the Industrial Revolution, or simply a longing for an imagined simpler life, I cannot say—but it is an intense pull, and I have connected with many people through this shared dream. I believe this is what the Welsh refer to as "hiraeth"—a nostalgia or homesickness for something lost or departed—and it is a powerful thing.
In this way, my sense of home extends beyond the structure of a house or den. It is as much about belonging as it is about brick and mortar. This sense of home shapes how we experience our place within the landscape around us.
Although I love to depict a house or cottage, or an animal den or burrow, these are always part of a larger scene. That tiny cottage on the hill may seem a lovely place to live, inhabited by contented people, but it is only a small part of the landscape it inhabits. The animals and birds, the trees and flora, the stars and sky, the presence of spirits, the past, the dead, and our shared histories—all these elements are equally important. It is essential, for harmony, that they remain in balance.
Through my work, I hope to convey how we might fit into this shared home—this planet. How we are only a part of it, and how our sense of home can only be complete when we step back from dominance and become mutual. This, perhaps, is the most important thread in my work: that all things sharing this world are interconnected and sentient, and that there is joy in recognising and believing this.
Nesting
Where hares play
Wilderness dreaming
Solistice hare
Homestead
Wild foxes sleeping
When everything is in its place
Gentle traveller welcome
Reindeer herder's nativity
In the heart of the woods
