When Burgess Hill-based stained glass artist Ruth Mullan started offering workshops to make Christmas decorations she discovered participants, and the people they gave the trinkets and baubles to as presents, were reluctant to take them down with the other decorations on Twelfth Night.
‘My own favourite, the doves, are very popular at Christmas and they are one of the designs that can be made in my workshops,’ says Ruth. ‘People tell me they give them for Christmas and the recipients love them so much that they leave them hanging up all year round.’
Ruth, 59, who originally studied graphic design and worked at advertising agencies, turned her hand to stained glass when her children were young. As well as creating beautiful pieces, many of them made to commission, she is helping to save a disappearing craft.
The Heritage Crafts Association (HCA) recently added stained glass window making to its Red List of Endangered Crafts. The organisation cited reasons including the fall in number of craftspeople working in stained glass, lack of opportunities for them to pass on their skills and a decline in courses; something which Ruth is redressing, albeit with a degree of doubt at the outset.
‘I remember my first teaching session. I could hardly speak as my mouth was so dry and I was completely worn out by the end of the day. But I haven’t looked back since. I love running the workshops and meeting all sorts of people from18 through to 80-year-olds. I get great satisfaction from teaching and sharing my knowledge with others.’
Running workshops in the studio in her garden, Ruth says offering half and full-day Christmas workshops, which start at £95, were a natural progression.
‘It’s a great opportunity to make smaller items as gifts for friends and family in a very relaxed atmosphere,’ she says. ‘This year I’ve extended the range of designs that can be made. The small doves are very popular, and the little tree angels and robin, too. I can take up to a maximum of three people, so the groups are small and personal. This way I am able to give a lot of help and guidance.’
Ruth, who grew up in Newhaven, traces her love of art back to her childhood and it evolved in various stages before leading her to stained glass.
‘From an early age I always enjoyed drawing and I’d spend hours drawing simple studies of leaves and flowers,’ she says. ‘I particularly enjoyed pencil drawing and trying to get the shading right. At school I found academic subjects more difficult than creative art subjects. This was probably because, unbeknown to me at the time, I was suffering with word blindness. Sitting exams was incredibly stressful and this showed in my poor results.’
After sitting an O-Level in art and design, she completed a two-year foundation course at the former Eastbourne College of Arts and Technology followed by a two-year graphic design course with the Society of Illustrators, Artists and Designers. After her end of year show Ruth was approached by the director of a Brighton-based printing company and offered a job as an in-house designer, which was followed by other work in the same field before twice being made redundant and taking a series of part-time jobs.
Years later, she met Garry at Hove Dance Centre and they instantly clicked, going on to win amateur dance competitions and competing at venues including Blackpool’s famous ballroom.
‘It sounds a bit Strictly, and it was!’ says Ruth. ‘We dance as much as we can, when we can.’ The couple, who have five grown-up boys between them, married this May.
While many of Ruth’s designs are influenced by nature, Art Deco and the Arts and Crafts movement, she says she doesn’t keep to one style and likes to put a personal take on all her work which includes windows, door panels and restoration of existing stained glass.
‘I take a lot of photos of local views or of nature and I find inspiration in many different places,’ she explains. ‘I actually find making and creating pieces for a show harder to produce than working a commissioned piece, unless the show has a theme, then it makes it easier.’
Ruth is a member of The Sussex Guild, a group of professional designers, and has exhibited at guild shows and taken part in Brighton Open Houses and the Hassocks Art Trail. She also sells her work through her Etsy shop (ruthmullan.co.uk) with festive baubles priced from £40 and stained glass window hangings from £135.
‘Much of my work is commission based,’ she says. ‘People give me the dimensions of the piece and a basic idea of what they are looking for and I then interpret these into scamps, or thumbnails, which are very small colour design ideas for their approval. The next step is to draw the design to scale and then overlay thick tracing paper to draw on the lead lines. The lead lines on any stained glass should be carefully considered, not only for strength and construction but to enhance the design too. Glass is the next consideration. Not only colour and texture but also the light aspect of where the panel will be placed.’
While the procedure is very labour intensive, Ruth says the end result is well worth the effort. She recently made a replica of a stained glass window in a church, which was commissioned by members of the congregation as a gift for the priest who was leaving the parish.
Following the presentation Ruth received an email which read: ‘It was a special moment, an audible gasp from the audience and Father Ben burst into tears. He was so overwhelmed.’
The talented artist who takes a modern approach to the medieval craft of stained glass making says, ‘I am very lucky to be able to have my passion as my work. I don’t see it as work’.
Ruth is taking part in the Midhurst Contemporary Craft Show, Midhurst Rother College, North Street, December 7-8, Saturday 10am-5pm, Sunday 10am-4pm Sunday, £3, students and children free, free parking, thesussexguild.co.uk
