Gertrude Martin and her sisters made this mosaic at the Chapel of the Holy Spirit at St. Anne’s in Belfast, showing the hand of God in blessing over the waters of creation. The mosaic is composed of over 150,000 pieces of glass. I would imagine you could get lost in that world of glass, the colored bits of light. Stepping back to look at the whole dome must have been like viewing the earth from space.
There were five Martin sisters, and Gertrude, Margaret and Dora were the three who apprenticed with a local mosaicist, named George Bridge. None of the sisters married, and one author speculates there were no available partners after the World War. Maybe they just liked making mosaics. . .Gertrude is credited with installing mosaics as part of Westminster Cathedral’s Lady Chapel in 1913. She died in 1952. I love the formal portrait of her holding mosaic nippers in one hand and what looks to be a piece of glass in the other.
Lovely to see the Martin Mosaic on your blog I see it every day in life as I work in St Anne’s Cathedral, however, this is not the mosaic in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit it is the creation mosaic in the baptistery.