A bespoke 40m mixed-media dragon is the centrepiece of Glastonbury’s new chill-out area

Glastonbury’s famous South East Corner might be synonymous with late-night revelry and after-hours raving, but this year the vibrant area is adding a fresh dynamic to the mix with Dragon’s Tail: a new field, between Shangri-La and Unfairground, designed to provide a calming slice of respite away from the madness.

At its centre sits a specially commissioned new work by Somerset-based artist Edgar Phillips: a huge, 40m mixed-media dragon crafted from steel, printed fabric and his primary medium, stained glass. Formed of a 6m head, 10m body sections and 20m wings, it is a beast of a thing: a gigantic undertaking of a scale in keeping with the mythical creature it depicts. Over the course of the day and night, its lighting will fluctuate like a magical beacon, while the sculpture is functional too, with built-in seating for punters wishing to get quite literally taken under its wing.

'From one angle you’ll see a complete dragon, and from another you’ll see a Loch Ness Monster trundling through the earth. The idea is it can be many things,' explains Phillips of the design. 'The head is the feature piece in the centre, which I wanted to be able to be used anywhere at the festival, even if things change in this field. It’s essentially a dragon head-shaped greenhouse, glazed with beautifully coloured stained glass that’s iridescent and mouth-blown, and I’ve chucked in some Victorian jewels from my collection of antique glass.'

Realised with the help of local metal fabrication team Aller Engineering, The Dragon has been a true labour of love, crafted over 11 weeks of up-to-16 hour days. A life-long stained glass artist who completed his apprenticeship aged 16 and has since made work for Hollywood royalty including Elizabeth Taylor, Al Pacino and Carrie Fisher, it represents his most ambitious undertaking so far.

Unsurprisingly for a large-scale glass work in a hedonistic festival setting, the challenges have primarily lain in ensuring its durability and safety. 'The steel has to be fixed to the ground and stand well. If a little bit of glass gets broken it’s not the end of the world, but if people get over-exuberant there has to be a limit,' he explains. However, Phillips has a long history with Glastonbury and the Eavis family at its helm, which has helped prepare him for this hefty endeavour.

His first work for the festival was a pair of rainbow-coloured stained-glass wings known as the Wings of the West, commissioned by Emily Eavis after she saw a similar, red-winged piece made by Phillips following a period of deep personal trauma. In a visual manifestation of triumph over adversity, Glastonbury has also commissioned a pair of white wings from the artist; both of which have 'developed their own little culture' on the Worthy Farm site.

For Phillips, the beauty is in bringing this dramatic and often inaccessible art form to as many people as possible. 'For me, it’s about the light. Whatever stained glass window you create will be a thousand different things every day because of the movement of light and the mood and the change. That’s why I love working with it,' he says. 'It’s such high art, especially in hand-painted, kiln-fired stained glass, that it’s almost a shame that it’s so high up and lofty. I love the idea of bringing it down to earth.'