“Once upon a time” is where many of our stories begin—within tales, images, and shared narratives that shape our imagination. These beginnings hold our dreams, hopes, and fears, revealing both the light and the darkness that exist within us.

The works explore these layered spaces where beauty and shadow coexist. Romance, life, and death appear not as opposites but as parts of the same journey. Like the stories we grew up with, they reflect the enduring tension between wonder and uncertainty, innocence and knowledge, good and evil.

Each piece traces a moment in my own journey through art, material science, and stained glass—guided by an innate love of materials, process, and observation. Making becomes both intention and discovery, where chance, curiosity, and response shape the work as it unfolds.

Inspired by nature, science, and the quiet stories of life, these works become small tales of “once upon a time.” Within them are fleeting traces of experience: a fledgling beauty, a brief moment of light caught before it fades, the tear of a memory, or the quiet delight of wonder. Creating small, contemplative spaces where fragility and permanence coexist.

Rachael Jones is a gilder, artist, and maker whose work is shaped by a reverence for materials and the quiet stories they hold. Trained as a material scientist, she spent many years restoring medieval stained glass and historic buildings, learning the language of light, time, and fragile surfaces.

Her practice now moves between science and art, where craftsmanship becomes a form of inquiry. Drawing on historic techniques, natural forms, and the alchemy of materials, she creates works that explore transformation, memory, and wonder.

Through gilding, glass, and traditional processes, her pieces catch and hold the light—delicate, luminous, and quietly enigmatic. They exist in a space between the earthly and the divine, where beauty flickers like a passing moment and the ordinary becomes touched with something magical.