Stained glass artist from Halesowen creates windows for restaurant
Stained glass artist Ester Naylor has created decorative windows for a restaurant in Birmingham. .
Ester, aged 48, who works from her home studio, known as Off The Wall Stained Glass, at Halesowen, followed her father into the trade and carried out her first commission when she was only nine-years-old.
Her latest commission from Alex Mazleghani, owner of De La Vie's on Hagley Road, Edgbaston, took six months intensive work to complete and includes nine window panels which depict the Birmingham Bull.
These were based on the original fibreglass bulls that were located around the Bull Ring in the 60s.
Ester said: "This is the biggest commission that I have ever received and I really had to make use of my own imagination and recreate things in my mind as Alex did not give me any real kind of a design brief.
"He said that he did not want to see a design which is just unprecendented really.
"Somehow he trusted me to do the right thing with the windows.
"It turned out we were on the same creative wave-length as the feature window of the bull matched the colour of the tiles he used for that area.
"The rectangular design he has across the whole of the back wall matches the rectangular theme that I used for the windows.
"The window panels forming the bull are downstairs by the bar area.
"As well as the fact that this is a steak-house, the bull window is a representation of Birmingham and the fibreglass bulls that once adorned the old Bull Ring.
"In all I was asked to create a total of 16 windows and the others are on the upper level.
"Alex just said that my theme was rustic upstairs and modern downstairs.
"I had six months of intense work to finish the commission and pulled out all the stops to complete the windows.
"I think that people will think that it is an amazing space."
Alex said: "Ester has done beautiful work which can be seen in the steak and grill area and the upstairs which we plan to open as a coffee bar in March."
