daffodils are coming out : photos Steph Driver :

there is just room to show you 2 of the pictures I sent in for the next Wivenhoe Trail which will be 13 - 15 May this year... Do come & see some more at my studio... WHen the trail map is ready you will be able to download it from the WIvenhoe Art Trail website...

dancing leaves seriesof etched glass panels : janet driver ... 1) dancing lime: deep blue antique glass on yellow background glass [see my website for page on acid-etched glass "www.janetdriver.co.uk"

Friday June 5th : World Environment Day

stained & etched glass ready for window below c. janet driver

climate change window commissioned by the School of Life Sciences, Whitelands College  & made by Janet Driver 1998/9

This year the 45th United Nations World Environment Day is seeking to raise awareness of biodiversity issues worldwide... 

at the same time thousands of people are petitioning the UK government to prioritise green initiatives when it plans to kickstart the economy after the Covid 19 lockdown... 

and this all reminded me of how my research for this climate change window raised my own awareness... 

and just how many of the scenarios we then envisaged “some time in the future” have actually happened much earlier...during the last 20 years...

what can you see in that window ?

...a large part of it foretold the tsunami... & continual problems with flooding...immigration... terrific wild fires so recently in Australia... & far more...

45 years...20 years...    can the next 5 years after this pandemic make all the difference ...?

African Mirage, glass panel c Janet Driver

Praying through art @ Tate 20th June 2020 ...& in Wivenhoe

Two very different images...   which do you prefer ?

the photo just ‘jumped out at me’ from ‘ pathwaystogod.org ‘

I don’t know who took this photo, but it was advertising a workshop on praying through art at Tate Britain: 20th June 2020... copied from pathwaystogod.org

“Our day at Tate Britain will provide such opportunities to ‘stand and stare’, to allow a painting or sculpture to speak to our deepest selves and, in opening ourselves to the infinite, allow God to speak to us through that process of pondering. Simply by bringing our contemplative awareness of God in all things, and of God speaking to us through our deepest desires and appreciation of beauty, we hope to open ourselves to the touch of the Divine Artist and to realise our own potential as ‘God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to live the good life as from the beginning he had meant us to live it’ (Ephesians 2:10)

No particular knowledge of art is required – just an openness to God’s gifts.” 
Interested ? for details & booking : 
https://www.pathwaystogod.org/courses-events-retreats/praying-art-tate-britain-2

The other image is not attention-grabbing...  more fragile...Its one of a series of acid-etched glass panels which I made a few years ago, based on one of my sketches together with vivid memories of working in East Africa many more years ago...where grasses shimmer in the heat, leaves act as clever camouflage...
trying to give hints of ...well, What is it ?

...and now?... as I spend time looking at the light shining through these fragile painted, stained and etched glass panels... now...?  they speak to me more of climate change...  of the fragile beauty of our planet...
of what is already being destroyed through climate change... and yet of the hope we may be able to do something to save it...if only we act quickly... 

 “ Ngorongoro Mirage”: a series of 3 glass panels : c. janet driver.

Advent ... Annunciation

‘Annunciation’  etched glass panel : Janet Driver

“I love the way the sun shines through this glass !  But why call it Annunciation? ...Where is the Angel ? “

The questioner was quite perplexed...and certainly St Luke describes this as a conversation between Mary and an Angel: ‘...the Angel Gabriel was sent from God...’ [St Luke ch 1 v26 f ]  I have read this many times, and even had to take the part of the Angel in  Nativity plays as a child because I was tall & could shoulder the large heavy wings! 

I don't think I left out the angel... but wanted to portray a much more etherial indication of both angel and message...of the angel as an emanation of spiritual power...of light...of joy...of new  life...vitality...of something both seen and unseen...how do you describe or portray visually something so powerful and deeply spiritual ?   

Hence the spiral of flaming light...the shimmering sense of wings half seen, half understood... and the sense of Mary’s “yes” with echoing flames of the Spirit throughout her being...

 “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you...”

Whenever I see the sunlight  pouring through this glass...the deep reds dancing with flickering yellows, reflecting across the floor or lighting up someone’s hair with a halo of coloured light, I am reminded of  glimpses of the Holy Spirit in the lives of people I have met...