The Creation Window in Chester Cathedral

A trip to North Wales last week offered the opportunity to take the scenic route and drive up via Chester to see a window I had heard about. Ros Grimshaw won a fabulous commission  to design and make a Millennium Window for Chester cathedral. Installed in 2001, it is large, very striking window in the west wall of the refectory. It depicts the hand of god moving through the six days of his creation of the world, from the stars and planets, to the plants and creatures, such as ourselves.

What has touched people particularly is the personal imagery she has included. She has Parkinson's disease, and the imagery includes the scan of her Parkinsonian brain (above, centre), and a foetus in the womb (above, right). 

She has overcome her considerable, and increasing, difficulties to celebrate creation, and she has written a book about the journey, called 'Six Days'. I hope, like God, she rested on the seventh day, to look upon her work and see that it was good.

For several months I have been mulling a personal project about creation, in particular, about separating the light from the dark. Seeing the Chester Creation Window inspires me to set aside some time this summer to develop my ideas and experiment with ways of expressing them.