John Reyntiens

John Reyntiens made his first stained glass window when he was nine years old. He set up his studio in 1996 and since then has worked on everything from small scale domestic projects to art glass on a large scale in public buildings: Windsor Castle, Westminster Hall, Jesus College, Cambridge, and internationally in hospitals, museums, schools, churches, hotels and office buildings. Clients include Her Majesty the Queen and Versace.

John trained in fine and decorative arts. Like his father, Patrick Reyntiens, he works in a fine art tradition. He brings a combination of established techniques and new technologies to new projects as well as to restoration and conservation work. His team use hand-blown antique glass, acid etching, kiln-forming, staining, painting and gilding to create unique pieces of artwork.

The Team

I surround myself with the best people in the business - stained glass is time consuming and is not something where modern methods can wipe away the time needed to make successful artwork in glass.

Designing

My inspiration for a design always comes from working on drawings, collage, watercolour, gouache and acrylics. I spend a lot of time designing with collage, it’s a lot like stained glass - you cut up different pieces of colour into shapes and stick them down and you can carry on working into it with paint, pencil or charcoal.

I always take into consideration the clients’ requirements and what they like in my portfolio. Each commission is site specific so we have to think about the lighting, where it’s going, to how it’s going to work in its environment. Each project is different and our personal approach allows us to respond to the challenges of each situation.

Making

I like to keep control of what I do so in my studio we make pretty much everything except some of the larger scale silk-screen printed projects. It allows me to keep 100% control on all my projects. I bring in clients to see the work in progress so they are aware of what were doing, and if there’s any changes they want to make we can do it. It is always an experimental process, which allows us to be continuously enhancing what we do.

We timetable what we do and always allow a certain contingency, so over the past 20 years we’ve always produced the work on time and to budget.

Installing

My crew have a great deal of experience installing windows into stonework in churches and historic buildings, and have worked closely with some of the country’s leading stone conservation companies. We have also worked abroad and if there’s an awkward installation we find a way of working around problematic issues.

Two of us in the studio have Cherry Picker & Scissor Lift licenses which gives us the ability to work at height.