Today was an excellent day in my glass world. First thing this morning in my Stained Glass Conservation and History class my partners and I gave a presentation to the group on our experiment using an ancient text as an instruction manual on breaking glass with a hot poker and grozing the pieces to fit using old fashioned tools. Our power point presentation went very well and was well recieved by the head of our course.
After a lunch break and making a few more appointments to see properties, we went back into the workroom for Basic Glass Handling and Conservation, which is the hands on part of the course. Our class today was led by the head of the York Glaziers Trust, whose main task is to conserve the Medieval glass in York Minster. The first half of the class was a lecture/discussion on how and why to document the process of conserving any stained/painted glass window. It was very interesting, because he brought along copies of a series of historic documents showing the documentation of a particular window begining in the 1600's and progressing up to the present conservation of the window.
The more exciting half of the class came in the second half, when we were asked to inspect and assess various pieces of glass, the majority of which were between 600-800 years old! We had some basic instruction on photographing the glass in situ or on a light box, which can be very tricky due to the lighting, and then we all went round looking at each others sets of glass to see various types of problems that arise in glass over the course of its 800 year old life. Its very surprisng how some of it looked almost new, while other pieces were so coroded, they were as thin as tissue paper.So that is a day in the life of a Stained Glass Conservation student.
I hope you have a good weekend! I'm meeting up with my Auntie Mary tomorrow morning, and will have a brief respit from the hostel tomorrow night, as I will be sleeping in Skipton!
