In
1957, Eleanor Milne worked for a stained-glass firm
in Carleton Place, Ontario. She learned much about the medium when she was
assigned more and more responsibility for completing stained-glass work
as the firm slowly went bankrupt. Milne featured two small stained-glass
windows in her September 1959 exhibition in Saint John at the New Brunswick
Museum. In the exhibition pamphlet, she is credited with three stained-glass
commissions for churches. By the time she designed the twelve stained-glass
windows of the Provinces and Territories for the House of Commons, Parliament
Buildings, Milne had acquired extensive experience with stained glass.
Stained
glass is made by mixing metallic oxides with molten glass, or by fusing
coloured glass with clear glass. Artists then cut pieces from the glass
and fit them on a design drawn on wood or paper. Black enamel is used
to add details, firing or baking in a kiln fuses the dark pigments. The
pieces of cut and fired glass are joined by strips of lead. Once all the
pieces of glass have been joined they are then fastened within the window
frame.