I grew up on the north-east coast of Scotland and spent most of my spare time drawing imaginary people and worlds. The break-up of my family took me to a different school where the art teacher, a sexist bully, made fun of me and I was nicknamed 'the misfit' by pupils and teachers alike.
I gave up drawing completely and went travelling, moving from squat to squat for many years. I poured my creative energy into performance and songwriting, recording 10 albums over the next 30 years.
In 2000, out of financial necessity and quite by chance, I found a job assisting a friend with the making and mending of architectural stained glass windows.
Frustrated by the meaningless designs I was asked to reproduce at work, I became drawn to the strange beauty and storytelling power of medieval stained glass. From books, I taught myself to paint and fire glass and eventually started bought a sandblaster, a drill and explored a multitude of new techniques.
In 2013, I began to focus exclusively on personal work and found it could be a way out of years of emotional and artistic frustration.
Unlike other stained glass artists, the technical process is less interesting to me than the content ; I want to tell stories, tackle thought-provoking , contemporary subject matter and link the characters of the past with my own neighbours and adversaries.
Pinkie Maclure
Stained Glass
