About The Glass Quilt
A quilt is a comfortable thing. Something to be wrapped around when it is cold or we are ill. Sometimes, however, that thing which we want to be comfortable becomes hard and unyielding – like glass. Yet glass can also be warm and comfortable as it transforms the light which passes through it and bathes us in its gentle tones.
This Glass Quilt will be traveling around the six cathedrals of Wales providing a welcome and warming space for contemplation and meditation in the midst of their vast vistas. You are most welcome to enter into its embrace and experience the space and hints of transcendence which it offers.
The wall of glass is made from 49 stained-glass roundels placed into a woven metal screen. The four different colourways of the roundels give an impression of a Jerusalem cross, which represents the four ancient sites of Christianity and pilgrimage (Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch and Rome). In each of the small roundels nine small circles form across, these circles represent the nine coins in the story of the lost coin from Luke 15. This type of cross is known as a Bezant Cross – a bezant was a coin of the Roman Empire.
The yurt in which the Glass Quilt is housed comes from Mongolia. The white felt, sacred in Mongolian culture makes yurts looks like pearls in the vast landscapes of the steppe, yet they leave no permanent mark upon it: they are the homes of nomads, eternal pilgrims through the world. It therefore feels like an appropriate home for the Glass Quilt as it performs its pilgrimage through Wales.
