Art on Glass

Most artists are reluctant to explain or expand on any meaning behind the works they create. They like their audience to interpret any given piece of work in their own way.

 

Anthony (Tony) Naylor – my Dad – is no exception. Over a span of almost 60 years he has created stained glass windows that are rich in allusion, metaphor and symbolism but he has always been reluctant to lay all this out in words because of his desire for his audience to discover their own meaning in his work. Many times over the years, family and friends have tried to encourage him to share at least some of his thought processes, creative sparks and moments of synchronicity that come together in his windows.

 

More recently however, he has gradually changed his thinking. This was sparked by an overheard comment at St Mary’s Church, Lapworth when someone, looking at the window (pictured above) said “Is that the artist’s signature?” referring to the Alpha Omega symbol in the centre of the window! Quite hilarious really, but this and one or two other little instances have shown us that whether Dad likes it or not (he can be very stubborn!) some of his windows need a bit more explaining.

 

This led us to agree that it would be good to offer a more personal account of Dad’s work and the result is this website. Our vision is that the website will showcase a selection of Dad’s windows with commentary by me, Rachel, his eldest daughter. Although Dad has been known throughout most of his career as a stained glass artist, he has always been an illustrator at heart -  he did his apprenticeship in commercial art and spent a number of years as a commercial artist. For this reason we have called the website AJ Naylor Art on Glass rather than Stained Glass.

 

This website is a work in progress. The initial plan is to create pages that focus on six single windows and five series of windows. The main focus of each page will be images: photos of the windows themselves, initial designs and other relevant photos. Commentary will take second place to the images. Some commentary may be purely descriptive – about the process of the creation of a window. Some may be anecdotal – there are many stories that accompany the making of the windows. And finally some commentary may touch on the ‘deeper’ aspects of Dad’s work – the allusions, metaphor and symbolism that percolate throughout all his work.

 

As each single window is written up, it will be available to view by going to the ‘Single Windows’ tab in the menu at the top of the page. The series of windows will be available by going to the 'Series of Windows' tab.

 

Please note that although this website has been optimised for viewing on a mobile phone, it looks much better viewed on a desktop, particularly on the web browser Chrome.

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Also note that bible quotations are from the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) unless otherwise indicated. 

 

For now, here are a few photos for your enjoyment: