Letting in God's light

Rosie Hoban

Stained glass artist Christopher John works in a studio and gallery in the Dandenongs outside Melbourne. Rosie Hoban spoke with him about his work.

For centuries children have whiled away their time in church gazing at magnificent stained glass windows, enthralled by the images. The rich colours and glory-filled or tragic scenes have for centuries been a part of the rich interior and exterior of churches around the world and an inspiration for many Christians.

Stained glass artist Christopher John continues to ignite the imagination of adults and children in the 21st century, with contemporary interpretations of the world's best-known stories. Ironically, it was the absence of such vivid images during his childhood Uniting Church days that fuelled Christopher's passion for stained glass. He recalls sitting in church and thinking things were a little drab. Today, the sun shines through his windows throughout Victoria—a thought he finds both terrifying and rewarding.

'If someone commissions an artist to do a painting and people don't like it, you can always take it down. But stained glass windows, once installed, can be there for hundreds of years. So I feel a lot of pressure to get it right', Chris said from his home studio.

His art might well have ended up hanging in hallways and corporate buildings, rather than churches, if it hadn't been for a lecture by German-born Klaus Zimmer, a glass artist who co-founded the Australian Studio Glass Movement. Chris, who graduated with Honours in Art & Design from Prahran College of Advanced Education in 1980, heard Klaus speak about glass and was rapt.

'He spoke so passionately about his work and about glass that I decided I really wanted to study with him', Chris says. That post-graduate year of study in stained glass at the Chisholm Institute of Technology in Caulfield under Klaus Zimmer, set him in a direction he has followed for more than 20 years. It has also established him as one of Australia's leading stained glass artists, working mainly in Catholic and Anglican churches.

It's a career path that sits well with his own personal and spiritual journey and one that allows him to marry his love of drawing and stained glass. Creating a stained glass window, he says, is more than an artistic endeavour. If done with integrity, it requires research, reading of the scriptures and periods of reflection. 'I am a religious person and I think you need to be. I think your work would lack a certain spark if it were just an intellectual exercise', he says.

'In art school I had a sort of calling and I became very interested in all religions and wanted to know more about the mystics, Zen, Buddhism—everything really. And I still call on all those influences when I am working on a window.'

Christopher describes himself as 'ecumenical to the extreme', with a strong faith in God and a spirituality that encourages him to explore the scriptures and to reinterpret the stories he creates on glass. Such interpretation can put him at odds with the commissioning organisation, often a priest, minister or parish committee.

He has developed an individual style over the past 20 years, using both classical techniques and abstract and non-illustrative designs, depending on the architecture of the building he is working on. One of his most challenging commissions was St Monica's Catholic Church in Moonee Ponds in 2003. He was asked to design and manufacture two traditional stained glass windows depicting the four apostles, for the church's 150th anniversary. His windows had to fit in with some of the original windows of Victorian glass, which had been made in the 1800s and imported from England. It demanded the use of techniques unfamiliar to him.

'All of a sudden I felt like the apprentice. I had to deconstruct the way windows of that era were made and learn how they had achieved the images they had. I was in awe of those artists who had none of the tools we now have, but who had a skill and technique that was hundreds of years old, and no longer exists.' This commission demanded a lot of research on how those artists used multiple layers of paint and multiple firings.

But all the research in the world cannot give a stained glass window artist all the information he or she needs. Until a window is mounted, it is almost impossible to imagine how the light at various times of the day will play with the colours used.

'It can be terrifying really. I am currently designing and painting 14 stations of the cross for the St Leopold the Great Catholic Church in Altona and today I had to throw out one of the stations because I had fired on too much silver stain and the composition no longer worked.'

While most of Christopher's work is in churches, about a quarter comes from private commissions in houses or corporate and civic buildings. Working in a religious setting is a constant challenge, especially when great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci have set the benchmark and contemporary artists like Chris are trying to move their audiences beyond those classical images. It's a risky and at times contentious issue.

He recalls designing a window that featured the Last Supper. Christopher departed from the traditional image of Jesus' arm around John and, instead, placed his arm around Judas. It was an unpalatable image to the people who had commissioned the window. 'I wanted to show that if anyone could forgive Judas it was Christ and this image evoked that sense of forgiveness. But ultimately the people have to want to look at the window and be comfortable with what they see,' he says.

Does he there a favourite window?

'Does a parent have a favourite child,' he replies.