Moata McNamara talks with Suzanne and Ben Hanly
In St. Faith’s Anglican Church, Ohinemutu, a Māori Christ in korowai walks on the waters of the lake. This etched window and the accompanying mataaho ōpure were refuge for me, at a turbulent time in my life. Not for the religious references, many of which I did not understand, but for the peace through colour, light and form.
Windows, for the most part, are transparent gaps in the opacity of a structure. They perform a threshold between inside and out, public and private. They let light in and out and often transfer air and heat by opening and closing. So, what is the attraction to stained glass? A glass that selectively allows only certain wavelengths through. Is it the seduction of colour? The long-reported healing properties of light through a spectrum? The historical association with places of worship?
It is with these memories and questions that I come to interview renowned stained-glass artist/designer Suzanne Hanly who, with husband and glass technician, Ben, established The Glassworks in Mount Eden, Auckland over thirty-five years ago.
-Moata McNamara, Art Editor
Moata McNamara: Kia ora Suzanne. And Ben. Thank you for giving your time for this interview. Firstly, could you tell me how you came to working with stained glass?
Suzanne Hanly: Well, when we lived in Christchurch, I lived next door but one to Ben, and he and his flatmates had got jobs at a stained-glass place. I met them and looked at the whole thing and thought we could do so much better than what they were producing. It was very commercial. One of the ghastliest things Ben ever made was a horse in a checkerboard field. It was absolutely terrible (much laughter). I was very familiar with the Chagall windows and realized there was scope to do amazing stuff.
Ben Hanly: The style at the time was art nouveau. What was also interesting, John Britten, the motorcycle guy, he also worked with stained glass at the time.
SH: He was making curved lampshades.
BH: There was a group of us, about thirty, making stained glass. We were making cabinet windows for Australia. Queensland. We got very good at what we were doing.
MM: But you saw something more in it?
SH: We saw potential for it to be something else. And, of course, we were young. In our early twenties and nobody trusts you to do anything. It took a long time to achieve that potential.
BH: We started a little business called ‘No Flowers Glass’. And we didn’t get any work.
SH: We had to work in record shops and restaurants till we got a breakthrough. We had our first breakthrough with an exhibition called ‘Artists in Glass’. We got people like Ralph Hotere and Ben’s dad, Pat, and a whole bunch of artists, also Phil Trusttum, to make amazing stuff. Our whole thing was to make amazing works with New Zealand artists.
MM: Where did those works go?
BH: We showed them in two galleries in the South Island, and nothing happened. We brought them up here and they went to Rodney Kirk-Smith’s RKS gallery, and we sold everything.
‘Artists in Glass’ got us two big jobs. One with Phil Trusttum in Wellington, which was fifty-five metres wide, and five metres high. And it wrapped around the building; Unsys House.
SH: They’ve taken that one out, unfortunately.
BH: The other one was the Auckland cathedral where we worked with Nigel Brown on the first five windows at the front of the church…
SH: And then we did a side of the cathedral with Robert Ellis and then another side with Shane Cotton.
BH: We’ve gone on and done other works with artists as well. Also, Suzanne does amazing designs herself. Shane Cotton was asked to do a stained-glass window at his marae, up north. And he said, “I’ll do the front, but get Sue Hanly to do the window.” So, we did this window that was fantastic. It had the tribe’s symbol (kaitiaki), this tiny owl (ruru). And they wanted to make it big.
SH: A little fluffy owl ended up looking a bit like an American eagle by the time we finished.
BH: And we worked with Hotere’s family. They came to us. He had always wanted to do some stained glass for his home marae in Mitimiti. His daughter came to us with some old drawings. Suzanne put them together. Ralph had died by then, but the window is fantastic.
MM: How do you go about working with these commissions? What’s your process?
SH: First of all, I show people what we’ve done, because now that we’re so old and established, we’ve done a lot. I get a feel for the degree of complexity they like; the degree of abstraction. The current project of the windows for the Tongan church, they want everything to be very real. I’ve just finished this window for Selwyn Village. It is a modern chapel, and they wanted something quite modern to go in it. I’m happy to hop between realism and abstraction. Now we’re going back to doing portraits. I really enjoy working on portraits. Using glass paint to paint with. I do a lot of painting.
MM: How long does it take to produce these beautiful windows? There is a huge amount of work in the making, let alone the consultation and design process.
SH: People usually have a list of wants. For instance, the donor of this window (Hereworth School) had had a very happy marriage, and he wanted to celebrate that. His wife had loved horses, loved children, loved the outdoors, loved the place she was in. And she just sounded like a wonderful person, so you end up doing something which is a big celebration of their life. That’s why there’s a big blue horse in it. And native birds – between the two of them they had planted about twelve thousand trees in the area. They did all sorts of things for the community and did have a wonderful life. It was very inspiring to go off and do something like that. His prerequisite was that we had a horse in it. And I thought if we have a little horse in it, it will look useless. So, I made it large and blue – to go with the yellow background. The horse is done from a very decorative standpoint, especially the tail. It’s a horse that is completely amiable and gentle.
It was also a religious window, and they wanted it to be about boys and girls going to the school, because this is a residential school. So, we’ve got a boy and girl playing marbles and other references in it.
MM: …and the materials you are using?
SH: There is a whole range of clear and coloured glasses. And if I want something specific they would make it for me. I use a lot of textured clears for abstract work to give a more design effect rather than colourful. I use yellow a lot for background, because when I look at these old windows, they are so bitsy. I want more clarity in the design. Some of the old windows you haven’t a clue what’s going on in the window, who the people are or what the story is about.
BH: We import all our glass from Europe, Germany or France. It is mouth blown. They blow a big bottle and when it’s cool, they cut it in half. It’s then heated again and formed into a sheet. The lead we get from Australia.
MM: That’s such a long process before it even gets to you. From sand on a beach. As I take leave of Suzanne in her wooden studio across from their home, I am struck by the light from a sheet of blue glass propped against a window. There is an instant calming. A peace. And in the turbulent landscapes of our current world, there is a need for more of that.
Thank you, Suzanne and Ben, for your work that reaches so many.
Kia tau te rangimarie.
