Me, age 8.
Rachel Kevern
I’m Rachel Kevern, the author of this website, and the eldest daughter of Janet Naylor and stained-glass artist Tony Naylor.
Growing up in our semi-detached house in Hall Green, Birmingham, stained-glass was a prominent feature of family life. My two sisters (Lia and Ester) and I were familiar with Dad’s work spilling into the home. Mealtimes often involved us all sitting around the dinner table looking at a section or detail of a stained-glass window propped up in the living room window while Mom and Dad discussed it. Did these colours sit right together? Did this painted piece need changing slightly? Did it, heaven forbid, need to be scrapped completely and started again?​
In addition to frequently viewing bits of coloured or painted glass, we grew accustomed to sharing the living room with full-size cartoons (templates) for windows taped to the wall, and didn’t bat an eyelid when we’d
come home from school to find ecclesiastical fittings such as large statues of Jesus and Mary standing in front of the TV (as well as doing stained-glass, Dad also occasionally restored other ecclesiastical fittings, such as statues and church weathervanes).
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Above all, I remember the wonderful colours and textures in the stained-glass, and how they would shift and change according to the conditions outside: the position of the sun, the weather and so on. Unlike other forms of art, stained-glass depends on light transmitted through it rather than light reflected from it. Dad was always interested in the way the light outside interacted with the glass, incorporating his knowledge of the window’s aspect, and what it looked out onto, into his designs.
L to R: My sisters - Lia and Ester - and me, 1974.
At my PhD graduation, with my parents, in 2007.
Some years later, after I had left home and when my two children were both at school, I embarked on an undergraduate degree followed by a PhD, both in Theology, at the University of Birmingham. The subject of my PhD, completed in 2006, was the Jewish mystical origins of the eastern Christian doctrine of mystical ascent and vision of God. This mystical vision always involved divine light, a marvellous light that cannot be described.
Although I went on to have a career as a Research Fellow working with ancient Greek manuscripts of the Bible at the University of the Birmingham, the idea of divine light continued to captivate me. It was only some years later that I realised there was a connection between what I had been researching as a PhD student and my experience growing up in a household surrounded by stained-glass. Light is a perennial symbol of divine illumination and revelation,
much used in the Judeo-Christian tradition, not least in the coloured glass of cathedrals, churches and synagogues. Such glass serves as both an early form of storytelling and the light that is transmitted through it symbolises divine light, God’s presence on Earth. As such, stained-glass windows become beautiful and potent means for the soul to contemplate the divine.​
This connection invited a collaboration with my Dad in the form of this website, bringing together his artwork and my theological commentary. This ongoing project showcasing some of my Dad’s work began in 2020.
Since the inception of this project, my husband Peter and I have received the most wonderful gift of becoming grandparents to two beautiful grandchildren. I have also continued with academic research and writing, most recently as a Research Fellow at The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education in Birmingham, researching mystical experience. For my academic profile, see here.
In my role as Research Fellow, approx 2010.