Duck Ragu Makes The Mirrors You Want
Poppy Templeton, also known as Duck Ragu, is a stained glass artist who we have been obsessed with since landing on her instagram page on a whim.
In my brain I know stained glass is still a thing somewhere but it feels like it is reserved for someone probably living in the Notre Dame tower, not a young artist from Melbourne. As it turns out from the conversation Poppy and I had, stained glass is in fact a very ancient art technique. I will not divulge the rabbit hole I found myself in looking up its history, but it is known that the earliest manmade glass is in the form of Egyptian beads dating back to between 2750 and 2625 BC. The Romans got really into it, as did the British, especially in the churches. What remains true of the art today is the time, skill and appreciation for colour and design needed to do it well. Poppy clearly has a gift for stained glass and an impeccable eye for design. I spoke to Poppy about the differences between the techniques, where she gets her colour palette inspiration from and the upcoming opening of her workshop/store, Fragile Place on April 25th.
Thank you so much for having a chat with me today. A few weeks ago I was doing a piece on emerging artists (which you can read here) just trawling the internet for people who’s stuff I haven’t seen yet and I somehow came across your page and was like ‘holy shit, this is so cool!’ I’ve never really seen glass done in the way you have.
Poppy Templeton: It's funny the reactions I've gotten since I've started. I’ve been doing it for about three and a half years. So many people are like ‘I literally didn't know this was a thing.’
Yeah I mean, I know it has been around forever with windows but I haven't seen young people do it.
Windows are actually ancient art, which is crazy to think about. But the idea of putting stained glass on your wall as art is pretty new.
Talk me through the technical terms. There’s lead lighting and stained glass. What is the difference?
Stained glass is the catch all kind of phrase and the easiest way to refer to what I do. Under that umbrella there are two main ways which are lead lighting or copper foil. Lead lighting is the traditional technique. If I make anything bigger than 40cm I'll do it in the leadlight technique. With lead lighting you solder the pieces together and then use cement to essentially cement the whole window, which makes it waterproof so that it can be an actual window. The copper foil method was made popular by a guy called Louis C. Tiffany, hence those beautiful lamps that you see around are called Tiffany lamps. I usually use copper foil with the smaller mirror, which is more of a modern technique using colored enamels and opalescent glass on copper.
Gotcha, so the restaurant signs I have seen you do- is that lead lighting?
Yeah.
Okay. And how did you get into this?
My mum actually did a short course on lead lighting back in the 80’s. I kept two of her pieces and always used to look and them and want to do it myself. There’s quite a big barrier to getting into stained glass with the cost of the setup, the materials, all of that kind of stuff so it was always just one of those things that I was going to maybe do one day. Then in 2020, I wasn’t allowed to do this project I wanted to do with the PhD I was applying for and was super bummed. I went for a walk with my friend who was about to go and do a stained glass course and asked me to come along to just get my mind off it. I started the course and very quickly was like yeah I fucking love this.
How quickly after you finished the course did you start selling your pieces?
I didn’t actually finish the course, I just started selling them. I didn’t like the idea of having social media at all but I just made a bet with my boyfriend at the time that if we went into another lockdown I would get an instagram to start posting what I made. We went into another lockdown and duckragu started. First it was just friends wanting a mirror but then suddenly other people started asking for pieces. It was very quick the whole thing.
Wow cool. I mean, they’re so beautiful so I can see why it took off. I really want to get one. Other than the mirrors I’ve seen you do lead lighting for restaurants and that amazing top you made for Dee Salmin for the Brownlow. Are those the kind of projects you want to do more of?
My preference is the bigger pieces. The restaurants, cafes, that sort of thing. I would do another corset only if it was for Rihanna otherwise I’m not doing it again because that was so painful. I loved doing it for Dee but it’s literally so painful, my hands got so smashed.
Have you had a favourite design commission?
That’s a good question. I think the first thing that was publicly installed was the piece I did for Sunhands Cafe. That'll always be the most sentimental for me because they were the first people to trust me to have my design as a really permanent front of the brand. So yeah, that was probably my favorite.
That's so special. Also your eye for color palettes is so insane. Where do you get your inspiration for that?
You know when you’re young and you get asked what job you want - I would always say I wanted to work in colour. I have always been obsessed with colour. My dad was like yeah you were even very particular with the colour undies you had on as a kid. ‘No dad I want the ones with navy trim,’ that kind of thing. I don’t know if I can answer where the inspiration comes from other than just my head.
(Laughs) Dreaming in colour from the start then. How long does it take from when you get a commission to create a finished piece?
if it's a smallish piece I can probably make it in a day. But my lead time is usually a month because the glass I have on hand comes and goes so I don’t always have the right colours. I’m obsessed with not having wastage so I’m particular about the colours I order so I don’t have stuff I won’t use. For the bigger pieces, I’ve spent up to four months working on them. It’s always the colour that takes the longest to get right, especially pink. That’s the most difficult colour.
Why?
Just because of the way the glass is made. It’s not actually pigments but metals and oxides. Pink actually has real gold in it.
Wow I never knew that. And where do you source your glass from? Is there a market on Marketplace?
Yeah definitely Marketplace. I still have a bunch of vintage glass that I've got off Marketplace. Also from retired lead lighters, that’s a big one. Other lead lighters who want to trade something.
Is the lead lighting community nice to be a part of?
At one point I don’t think it was. There was a lot of gatekeeping and a lot of males. I worked with a leadlighter called Geoffrey Wallace who is actually quite renowned in the space and he would tell me stories about people hiding their formulas for cement and stuff. So weird. But now I feel like there are way more women involved and have diversified a lot more. That’s a big part of why I wanted to open my workshop space Fragile Place. I hate gatekeeping, it’s so stupid. I want to create a place where if somebody is learning stained glass, and they don’t even have to be a student of mine, but if somebody just wants to come in and be like hey I'm trying to get this thing right, like improve my soldering or whatever, can you just give me tips. Then we can sit down and I can help them out. That’s a huge thing for me.
Please tell me more about Fragile Place. That sounds like an amazing space.
Yeah it happened very randomly. Things just presented themselves to me last year and I always wanted to know what it was like to have a shop. It was just one of those moments where I was like ‘yeap, okay this is happening now.’ There will be workshops where I will be teaching as well as my friend Jodie and a space at the front to buy some pieces too. I will also be using it as my studio for duckragu.
That is so fun. Other than the shop, which is very exciting, what do you want to make more of this year?
I just want to make bigger and bigger stuff. I just had an email from a company which I would consider one of the best companies to do something for so hopefully that works out. But yeah, just more restaurants and cafes and bars. People who want to give me more of an open, weird brief because designing is my favourite part of it.
Yeah that’s a good point actually, what is your ideal brief for those who want to order something?
I totally understand the stress of briefs because every time I have to commission anything, I freak out and I'm like ‘I don't know how to do this. I don't know what I'm meant to be doing.’ I imagine that kind of anxiety prevents people from reaching out a lot but what I would say is to just provide as much information as you possibly can. Anything that you can think of that might be inspiration. I love it when people send me photos of their home because I can get a good feel from that. One guy sent me a photo of his girlfriend’s wardrobe and I could work off the colours she liked to wear. That kind of stuff is so helpful.
Shop some of Poppy’s beautiful pieces here. Check out Fragile Place here.