Student Annie Egan has every reason to feel a sense of pride as the light shines through a new stained glass window at City of Bath College.
Annie spent almost a year painstakingly designing and making the beautiful new glasswork which creates colourful patterns on the Roper Building reception floor.
The part-time Design & Craft Glass student beat off competition from her classmates to be the name behind the 7m x 1m stained glass window.
She created the impressive multi-coloured piece of glass in five equal-sized frames, held together with varnished ply wood.
Annie said: “I’m so pleased with how it’s turned out; it’s an amazing opportunity to showcase my work.
“I’ve had so much positive feedback about how it completely transforms the space. The way it projects coloured light onto the floor on a sunny day is just the effect I was looking for.”
Design students were asked to sketch stained glass windows then present their ideas to Principal Matt Atkinson. Each student had to give a slide presentation of their work, including the cost of materials and time schedule.
Annie wanted to incorporate the look and feel of the College in the stained glass window. Her design uses the teal colour and the circle of the letter b in the College’s logo, as well as the same-coloured stripes as the sofas in the Roper Building’s reception.
She sketched her designs before using Photoshop to put together a mock-up. The design then had to be drawn up to scale so that the glass could be cut. The leaded panels were then put in a kiln and fused together.
Annie of Bathwick said: “It wasn’t easy making something so huge, I put aside a day a week to work on this project. The measurements had to be precise, even a millimetre out makes a big difference.
“I was extremely nervous about how it was going to turn out, I knew I was only going to get one chance and I wanted it to be perfect.
“Handing up the panels for it to be put together was nerve-wracking but It’s amazing how it all came together with a bit of putty and some nails!”
Annie, who has a fine arts degree, works as a self-employed artist in Bath, focusing on sculptural installations. But she now hopes to turn her hobby of working with glass into a new business venture.
She said: “The beauty of working in glass is that you can really show what happens to the light when it shines through.”
