Woven Lives is a beautiful and powerful artwork depicting the stories of the people of Bradford, which will have its debut exhibition at Bradford Cathedral this summer.
The piece is formed of illustrations representing milestone moments in the lives of 24 people from West Bowling, which are printed onto interlocking ‘woven’ glass panels. The panels will be hung together with fine chains in an octagonal frame, and will be lit from within by softly changing spotlights, allowing each story to be told as the light travels over the pieces.
We visited glass artist Linda Baines in her studio to see how the artwork was progressing, and to find out more about how the piece is made.
First, Linda scores then snaps coloured glass into small tiles.
She then screen prints illustrations from the participants lives onto the glass. To read more about how these illustrations were captured and prepared for printing, please see our news story here.
The illustrated tiles then are arranged into vertical columns, overlaid with horizontal glass strips to form a woven effect.
Each piece is carefully cleaned to prepare it for firing in the kiln.
Then Linda transfers the glass onto a kiln shelf. The shelf and the glass are protected from fusing onto one another with a sheet of kiln paper, which has a template drawn onto it. This means that each panel will be laid out with the same proportions. Metal hooks are laid between the glass pieces for chains to be attached onto after firing.
The glass is then placed in the kiln, and fired over 12 hours to 700 degrees celsius. It is allowed to cool slowly before being removed. The slow cooling prevents stress in the glass, and reduces the risk of cracks forming.
There will be a total of 20 of these panels, hung together in groups of two and three.
The artwork will be installed in the cathedral in early July, in the Holy Spirit chapel. It will be displayed alongside a film created by videographer Luke Hogan which shows the stories of those taking part. The glass art and video will come together to show how light and dark times are all part of the story of community and connection.