“At Christmas, an Italian man sold small glass figurines. He made them in front of our eyes and I was fascinated by the way he worked and shaped the glass,” recalls Nathalie, who now lives in Wem.
“As a teenager, I told my parents that I wanted to work with stained glass, but they were concerned about me doing it in Paris and thought it was too risky.”
Nathalie then devoted herself to visual arts and worked as a tour guide at both the Musée d’Orsay and the Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
But her dream of working with stained glass never left her and in 1995, already in her twenties, she moved to the UK to study stained glass in Swansea and later in Wrexham.
“I came to the UK because I had read a book about stained glass in a library in Paris and students in Swansea and found their methods and techniques very inspiring.” “Also, at that time, some people in France did not believe that this was a profession for women,” she adds.
Before leaving France, Nathalie was surprised to learn that she was following in the footsteps of one of her ancestors.
“I told my grandma I was going to do stained glass and she said, ‘Did I never tell you my dad worked with glass?’ I didn’t know, I was shocked.
“His name was Alexi Bouyer. He worked in the glass industry in the 19th century and made stained glass. She gave me two pieces of glass that he had blown and engraved,” she says.
Nathalie moved to Shropshire in 1998 and founded her current Couleurlive Studio after being awarded the Journeyman’s Award by the Worshipful Company of Glaziers and Painters of Glass.
For two years she worked in a studio at the Coalport China Museum in Ironbridge and was supervised by Alfred Fisher.
In 2001, her company moved to the English Bridge Workshop in Shrewsbury, where it was based until November 2023.
Now Nathalie is moving to a larger studio in the Old Creamery in Wem, where she works on projects for churches and heritage sites as well as public and private commissions.
She also offers glass painting courses for people who want to try their hand at a traditional craft. Her studio is divided into different areas for different purposes, such as glass cutting, painting, kiln firing, engraving and eglomisé, as well as special areas for storing and displaying glass.
Each area was named after an important person to Nathalie who had a positive influence on her career.
Among them is Jane Gray, a renowned stained glass artist from Shropshire whose works can be seen in churches, chapels and homes across the country.
“When I moved to Shropshire, Jane was the first person to welcome me. She also gave me some of her glass stock when she closed her studio,” explains Nathalie.
Also among those honored is Chris Bird-Jones, her teacher and mentor at Wrexham University, and Margaret Agnes Rope, one of the first female glass artists.
Among the many projects Nathalie has worked on over the years is the creation of a permanent artwork inspired by Margaret Agnes Rope and Shrewsbury Museum’s Hall of Rocks & Minerals collection.
The window, now on permanent display, was inspired by Margaret Agnes Rope’s Marga’s Baptistery Window in Shrewsbury Cathedral, her contribution to women in art and her fusion of modernity and spirituality.
Nathalie has also created artwork for the X-ray waiting room at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Gobowen, Oswestry.
She describes the project as follows: “It was not a design that would take patients to other horizons and make them forget the purpose of their visit to the doctor. Rather, the client wanted to appreciate the beauty of the human body and its beauty behind the outer skin and muscle layers. The design was based on X-ray and MRI images that the client had selected.”
She also undertakes private commissions and one of her recent projects involved designing a window for a client who had worked at Prees Heath Nature Reserve for many years.
When Nathalie, who also hand paints glass, works on a commission, she spends time figuring out what her client wants and where the window should be placed. Back in her studio, Nathalie creates a design that incorporates all the color and detail requests, such as flowers.
Before she starts working, she shows her proposal to her clients to get feedback and approval. She says, “The best reaction is when I show them my proposal and a big smile appears on their face.”
For Nathalie, the appeal of stained glass is that it uses light to create beautiful patterns that change throughout the day. “Every window I make is different and will look different every day. It’s alive,” she says.
“What I love most is when I deliver a window to a customer’s home and it is installed.
“When you see the window in its surroundings with the light coming in, everything makes sense. It’s very satisfying to see how much the customer loves their window.
“The joy is in delivering what they ask for, but I’m always disappointed that I can’t see how the window changes at different times of the day. I’d like to be a little bird so I could see how the window changes throughout the day,” adds Nathalie.
Nathalie is offering stained glass painting courses on September 28 and 29. For more information, visit www.couleurlive.com.
