When working with stained glass colour-blindness only proves to be a hindrance if you forget you’ve got it - which, as it is the ‘norm’ for me, is easy to do. For example, last year I made a series of replacement Victorian windows. The colour palette was pale greens, yellows and ambers, a selection of colours I find very difficult to tell apart. So, assisted by sample pieces with codes firmly stuck on them, I got the client to select the glasses they wanted, number all the pieces on the map (design) with the codes and I ordered the glass that way. Perfect! Except that when I came to cut them, what did I forget to do? Code each cut piece…
In the end, I had piles of three slightly different greens, one amber and two yellows, all indistinguishable to me without the codes. Thankfully, I have a very patient and understanding partner who always comes to the rescue in these cases, who piled up all the pieces into their respective separate colours. A lesson to be learnt – if you’re colour-blind, don’t rely 100% on what you see, make sure you can read the colour on it (on what?) e.g. pale green, light green, yellow green, yellow, amber etc, as a child all my pencils were marked thus!
As I said earlier, colour-blindness can be a hindrance if you forget you’ve got it but it can also lead to some colour combinations no one else would have thought worked together – but do!

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