SANCTUARY STAINED GLASS
Emma Butler-Cole Aiken, Artist
Client: Multiplex Construction Europe Ltd. and NHS Lothian
Funded by: NHS Lothian Charity’s Tonic Arts Programme
Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity
Emma Butler-Cole Aiken was commissioned to lead the design of the stained glass which appears outside the new Bereavement Suite. She had previously designed and made the Sanctuary stained glass window for the old Hospital in 1997, a place she knew well as she had spent a lot of time there in the nineties. “My daughter was being treated for kidney failure following an e-coli infection and it was a worrying time for our family. When creating the original window, I tried to remember how I felt at that time, and what I would have liked to look at. That’s when I came up with the idea of a beautiful tree tunnel with light at the end as a symbol of hope.”
In the new commission, Emma again used nature as her inspiration with the design being based on one of the trees on the right-hand side of the old window. The theme is the cycle of life: green shoots and healthy leaves; weathered branches bearing the weight and finally the inevitability of decay. The old stained glass window has been much loved over the years and so she has created a new window using traditional techniques and colours to bring a memory of the old alongside the beauty of the new.
