Back in 2010 we were approached by an artist company called Science who were renovating a 500 year old mill in the Cotswolds to make some butterflies in stained glass. That initial job led to many others and eventually all the windows in the mill which spread over 4 floors were filled with butterflies. It looked incredible when finished and below are a few images of the work done over the ensuing years. Each butterfly is a unique species and not repeated in any of the 300 + windows. I sourced the images from rare books on lepidoptera and examples were chosen from many different countries some of which I fear may now be extinct. The glass used for the background glass colour were also not repeated so the design had a random quality which meant sourcing glass from Germany, Poland, Russia, USA and France.
The techniques used in making these windows were unique, their refined quality was achieved by dispensing of heavy lead for finely soldered copper foil, diamond saws were used to cut shapes that would otherwise have been impossible using traditional tools. The etching and painting of the glass employed traditional and modern techniques to get the range of texture and colour for these amazing creatures.
