Member’s Spotlight

Julian Pitt

During 2024 I will be working on a new domestic commission – a window featuring kiln-cast ‘bubbles’ drifting across the sky.

In 2023 I completed two windows – one for a child’s bedroom entitled ‘Hot Air Balloons’ and an ambitious three dimensional piece in slumped and cast Tecta glass entitled ‘Window onto another world – a homage to Sir Philip Pullman’. Both are among the images.

In 2021 I completed a large window for the hall in the Pensychnant Nature Reserve Centre near Conwy. This is my biggest commission to date, comprising about 2 sq metres of leaded glass. The design features foliage from 12 tree species typical of the Reserve, made of hundreds of cut glass pieces fused onto clear glass base panes. An inscription in Welsh is cast into clear glass (instead of the usual technique of painting letters in enamel).

In 2019 I completed a commission for a domestic setting that celebrates the glazier’s craft in Venice. ‘Venezia, La Serenissima’ is a tumble of subtly coloured kiln-cast rondels. The composition was inspired by the austere rondel windows in the palaces and churches of the Serene City. But my work aims to dazzle with a complexity of light effects.

My second largest commission to date was installed as part of the permanent exhibition at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottinghamshire – see www.holocaust.org.uk .
Commemorating the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht in Germany, the window is viewed at the moment it is smashed by a thrown brick which is intended to vividly evoke the violent destruction of the November 1938 pogrom. Almost no glass survives from pre-War synagogues in Germany, so the design was inspired by windows in the synagogue at Targu Mures in Romania.

A window composed entirely of clear glass illustrates a poem about bereavement by the 17th century metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan (see illustration of whole window and a detail). The outline of deceased people is kiln-cast in 50 separately cut and assembled panes of glass, thereby creating a ghostly illusion ‘beyond’ the window plane itself. The inscription, also cast into the glass itself, is taken from the poem: ‘They are gone into the world of light! … I see them walking in an air of glory.’