19-12-2023

The Pearly Gates await.

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The shed was approached by Helen, the church warden at St. Peter’s Church, Titchfield, with the idea of making a set of angel's wings which would be fixed to a frame so that photos could be taken of people standing in front. I was asked to laser cut the wing shape and to add a little bit of detail to the wings I painted them white before cutting them, this would give a feather effect.

When they were submitted to Helen for approval, she went all sort of funny but was absolutely over the moon with the design, so much so that a second set were ordered. These were then passed to The Shed to make a stand for the wings to be fixed too, Gordon took responsibility for that part of the project. Helen then asked if a larger angel could be made for inside the church. She then thought it would be good if it was 6ft high and could be fixed outside at the entrance for visual impact when walking down the road towards the Church.

Due to it’s size the body had to cut in 3 sections and then fixed together, keeping in mind they were going outside in pretty inclement weather – as the old poem goes “The north wind doth blow, and we shall have snow…” well maybe not snow but certainly plenty of the wet stuff. Next came the wings, again they had to be etched and cut in four sections and fixed together prior to Helen’s team painting them.

After that little lot they were then given back to me to fix them to the angel’s body and fit hooks etc to the back ready for the cable ties to hold it in place, A great job well done, backs were patted and smug smiles appeared from all of those involved. The Shed also donated 20 smaller angels which were given to the children to colour.

When I visited The Church during the festival I was gobsmacked by the sheer number of angels decorating the church, there must have been hundreds as the whole Titchfield community played a part creating the scenes, far too many to list here, but we did get a mention in dispatches.

Author: John Camfield