South West Coastal Plankton Bloom, Mosaic

I am a stained glass artist living in Exeter and I make bespoke windows for commission and beautiful gifts and objects from a range of materials.

Although I usually work in Stained Glass; I have a love of the found object and a passion for recycling and reusing objects, and lately I have been experimenting with mosaic and window design using found and recycled materials

My design is based on an image of a plankton bloom off the South West Coast in 2003. My husband is a climate research scientist at the Met Office, so I have a keen interest in environmental issues and when he shows me illustrations of climate change and models I am often struck with how beautiful they are as images in their own right.

Plankton blooms are an annual event in the sea and provide the food for much of the sea life of our coastline and is part of a finally tuned eco-system and if thrown out of balance by climate change will have knock on effect on fish stocks and subsequently our fishing industry. Plankton blooms are very sensitive to changes in temperature and affects when these annual events will occur and how big they are. These blooms (are captured by satellites photographing chlorophyll) demonstrate how the plankton changes the way light moves through the water I find this aspect of the images interesting and find a parallel with how light is changed by colour and textured glass. Plankton blooms are made up of millions of tiny organisms coming together as a mass and as the piece will be made up of the many tiny pieces of mosaic which will reflect this coming together of the plankton to create a whole.

Although the design has a strong environmental message it is an abstracted version of this image and the piece is decorative and detailed, with lots of texture and I have had great fun beach combing with my 3 year old daughter!