Long ago and in a country far away a little girl, with curly locks, called Rosa dreamed up stories of colour, radiance and light, during many long hours spent on hard wooden benches in the barren church-buildings.
Her stories were filled with blood-like reds and dark deep blues and emerald greens,
surrounded by a brilliant radiance of glowing golds.
All she saw in her mind’s eye were loving Madonna’s, compassionately comforting their crying babes, suffering crucified Christs with trickling blood running down their crown of thorns; she saw our glorious Light being created and slithering Snakes being defeated and shining hosts of Angels singing before radiant thrones of gold.
She dreamed of Paradise, of Hell, of Good versus Evil and of Miracles and Reconciliation.
She imagined stained glass windows without knowing of their existence……..
Many years later, in the year 2000, Rosa walked unknowingly into a stained glass workshop in her new home country and knew instantaneously that this was the creative passion that she had been looking for all her life.
And twelve years later again she opened the doors of her studio to the public, where she is working passionately to make her dreams come true and called it ROSEWINDOWS.
Rosa’ studio is located at the Ruskin Glass Centre in Stourbridge.
“I am a self-taught artist, craftswoman, restorer, teacher & therapist.
I am passionate about everything related
to creating windows and sculptures that tell stories with meaning and instill a sense of awe, to restoring and invigorating our heritage in glass, to pushing the boundaries of this medium of colour and light, both in stained glass and in kiln-fromed glass and
to sharing my skills and ideas through classes and workshops with the community.
When I create my art, I work without a precise cartoon. The imagery develops under my hands, while I choose and move my glass and crystals around, bringing my ideas to life, which are been lying dormant in me. It is like my hands are instruments for what the glass wants me to tell.
I love the process. The feeling of the glass-rocks under my hands, shifting and sorting out the colours of the glass, imagining forms, the sunlight upon it, the tools in my fingers, never stopping until I am absolutely sure what is right, battling with shapes and lines so they express exactly the emotion I want to share, the feelings I want to evoke, the lines going the ‘right’ way, the patience for making and remaking while at the at the same time there is the underlying impatience, in every step, until that exciting and a little bit scary moment has arrived to hold the finished piece up... until the moment that it all starts over again"
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" I aim to create an experience for you, my viewer, through my work with glass, that stops you for a moment in your tracks; and to share with you the intense
sensory experience of colour through light that glass gives us, that fills us with wonder and awe"
My work is both bold and delicate, using strong and intense colours.
My glass is always transparent, preferably hand-blown, because of their unique hue. My current work combines this transparency with raw glass-crystals,
inserted in an unconventional way.
The lead-lines of came and solder are like a connecting system of veins and bones, supporting every shape and form and bringing to life the wholeness of the image. They are present, but not seen at the same time. My use of lead and my framing adds an industrial element to my work.
Stained Glass windows in cathedrals and churches told stories in imagery to people telling them
how to live your life, encouraging people to be miraculous, good, striving to be a saint....
They were the cartoons of the past. Over time, something has changed and those stories are not alive for us anymore.
We live in an era, where we make up our own mind. But the importance of story-telling through imagery has remained: Think of Facebook, of Instagram, of Selfies… People communicate their feelings, vision and history through imagery.
In my work I explore the themes of Trauma, Abuse, Violence and Healing, from a personal and a universal perspective.
"I tell stories that shake up old beliefs and shed new light on the process of
‘making up one’s own mind’ about these issues.
I aim to make people stand still for a moment and reconsider that,
what we thought we knew about."
Rosa Ferris was born on the continent and has lived and worked, as an artist,
teacher and psychotherapist for more than 20 years on the British Isles.
Her work has been exhibited in the UK, Ireland and the USA.