Léonie Seliger: Godmersham windows
Title: Godmersham windows
Artist: Léonie Seliger (b. 1965, German-British)
Location: St Lawrence’s, Godmersham (C of E)
Date: 2017
In 2015, Leslie Smith, the then Chairman of the Friends of Godmersham Church, approached the stained glass artist and conservationist Léonie Seliger with an idea to create new glass work for the church in memory of his late wife, Sue. The two windows at the apsidal east end of the largely unadorned North Chapel were chosen. The PCC soon approved the designs, which are a gentle celebration of nature and which recall the pattern made by exposed stones and their dark mortar joints fixed into the limestone arch above.
Seliger writes, ‘The pattern of these joints reminded me of a pavement, which led me to think about how our lives are spent moving through time, sharing the journey with others, and then passing on from this earthly existence. Those fragile and transient moments can, however, cause permanent change, and leave profound and lasting imprints in our hearts. It was this contrast between transience and permanence that inspired my design.
‘The glass is handblown in warm, silvery tones, with a gentle luminescence, intercepted by smaller pieces of brightly coloured glass. Images painted in sepia recalling imprints of fossilised plants, insects and early human footprints, are scattered across the glass. The 19th-century windows that were replaced, of a simple diamond pattern fitting to the Norman design of the church, were removed carefully and are being stored in the church.’
Léonie Seliger (b. 1965, German-British) is a designer of new windows, with work in the Chapel of the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary, Royal Hospital Chelsea, and All Saints Church in Boughton Aluph. Seliger is also head of the Stained Glass Conservation Department at Canterbury Cathedral and adviser to the Dioceses of Canterbury and Rochester on faculty applications involving restoration and conservation, and new designs for church windows.
Further Information
Medium: Stained glass
Permanent display
See Léonie Seliger’s Godmersham windows on the Ecclesiart map here.
Commissioner: Leslie Smith
Other artworks in churches by Léonie Seliger: windows in the Margaret Thatcher Infirmary Chapel, Royal Hospital Chelsea and All Saints Church in Boughton Aluph
For further comment on the stained glass see Visit Stained Glass, which is an online showcase for some of Britain’s finest stained glass windows.