Erlend Tait Stained Glass projects

Highland Year of Culture 2007

To celebrate Highland Year of Culture, I was asked to produce a series of stained glass windows for Fortrose Academy and its 7 feeder Primary schools; Avoch, Cromarty, Culbokie, Munlochy, North Kessock, Resolis, and Tore.

The teachers and I felt it was very important that all the pupils had a large input in this project, so over the year I worked my way round each school teaching the pupils how to make their own 'stained glass'. This included every pupil at each of the Primary schools working with paper, glue and card.

Ideas and inspiration

As they had been working on their own heritage studies, pupils from every school were full of ideas for inclusion in their window.

Ideas and inspiration

As they had been working on their own heritage studies, pupils from every school were full of ideas for inclusion in their window.

Process

Obviously, glass and lead are unsuitable for use in Primary school art classes, so we substituted these for coloured tissue paper and black card.

Result

The effect is the same, though - when mounted in a window the colours in the tissue light up, and the black card blocks out the light in a similar way to lead in a stained glass panel.


My glass work for the project:
As a former pupil of Avoch and Fortrose I have a good knowledge of the local area and heritage. However, it was very important to showcase the things which make each school/ village unique, therefore a great deal of my time was spent researching for each window. This included studying the many amazing books on the area, speaking to local experts, and sketching and photographing local landmarks.

To view images of the completed windows, please click on the thumbnails below




Acknowledgements:
Cromarty Courthouse Museum for an excellent collection of books, CDs, and local knowlege. Avoch Heritage Association (especially Mrs K Macleman & Mrs J Patience) for information on the dialect and everything 'Avoch' , Mr L Patience for info and stories about fishing. Ken and Anne Mackay, and Sandra Bain for a wealth of information on Tore's local history, heritage and landmarks. Also, the staff and pupils of all the schools involved for their enthusiasm and hard work. This project has been supported by The Highland Council

At Fortrose Academy, 5 pupils were selected from 5th and 6th year to make their own panel, using traditional methods. They worked incredibly hard to finish a panel each in just two days. This involved drawing the cut-line from sketches they'd prepared, learning how to cut glass, leading and soldering their panels, and finally, making them watertight with putty. Each panel measures 30cm x 30cm (one square foot):