Stained glass artist, designer and glass painter, Jude Tarrant (née Lamb), was born in 1957 and grew up in Eccleshill, Bradford, close to the home of David Hockney.
Jude studied Politics at the University of Portsmouth, graduating with honours in 1978. She has written of this:
I loved drawing and craft work as a child, and was always engaged in some ‘making’ project but I did not study art at school. My practical parents thought I should take subjects offering a more secure route to a stable employment future at a time when Bradford was going through some tough economic times and the woollen industry and the associated creative and design careers ended.
Jude stayed on in the Portsmouth area and found employment with the Mary Rose Trust as a Finds Assistant, logging and recording of artefacts from the sunken wreck. The work also included making archaeological drawings, which revived the idea of art-related work as a career possibility for her.
As I had never stopped loving drawing and art I suppose this became a possible future career option, but I found that I also liked to work more ‘hands on’ than just illustration work. So after leaving the Mary Rose Trust it was really a matter of chance, as these things often are, that I found my ‘vocation’ in stained glass, and which I found to be equally satisfying from the craft practical side and the artistic design side.
Green Man. Image: see artist’s website, below.
Jude’s first encounter with stained glass came when her husband-to-be brought home a discarded painted stained glass window.
… And that sparked my curiosity and the quest to acquire all of the tools, equipment and chiefly, skills to restore it, along with the knowledge that here was a subject that would keep me engaged and satisfied for the rest of my life, and that I never wanted to do anything else.
As Jude had already completed one degree, starting another in stained glass was not an option for her:
…so I found ways to study and improve my art skill base with life drawing sessions, and self-taught the craft skills mainly from a book on stained glass from my local library, as there was not much around at the time, and no-one locally to teach me. So I am self-taught, as many stained glass artists have been before me, especially after the need to rediscover lost techniques during the Arts and Crafts revival, so in a sense I am following tradition here.
Early in her career, Jude also had an opportunity to work with the glass-painter, Harold Thompson, who was working as a stained glass artist at Chichester Cathedral. Jude is now the resident designer, decorative glass artist and master glass painter, working from a studio and showroom, Sunrise Stained Glass Ltd, in Southsea, near Portsmouth. She works on her own designs and commissions and is also part of a team working on restoration projects in churches and cathedrals.
Remembrance Window. WW1 Centenary Memorial. St. John’s School Chapel, Leatherhead, Surrey. Image: see Sunrise Stained Glass website; link above.
Jude’s commissions have included a wide range of both contemporary and traditional secular and non-secular designs, for churches, chapels, schools, private homes, prisons, and for the Royal Air Force Police and Royal Navy Police. She is an elected Associate of the British Society of Master Glass Painters.
Life of Saint Paul. St. Paul’s Church, Paulsgrove, Hampshire. Image: see artist’s website, below.
Door Panels at Cross Mill Games Room, Winchester. See http://artiststainedglass.co.uk/trout.html
Artist’s website: http://www.artiststainedglass.co.uk
( See also Jude Tarrant’s formative childhood memory of David Hockney at David Hockney )