my process

I don’t tend to design my pieces in sketchbooks as many artists do. As in planning family holidays, I don’t like to know everything about the destination. I love the wonder of what I will discover. So I feel that if I design and draw my piece to the nth degree, a lot of the magic of the journey will be lost along the way.

I like to intuitively work by building up each piece with separate firings. Think of soup ; first frying the onion and garlic and then tossing in the veggies.  I play with “dribbling” glass rods (stringers) from a raised ceramic shelf with a cutout centre. The stringers are either dribbled onto a piece of flat glass or directly on to the shelf.

Then I wonder what colour to place this ‘squiggle’ on and fire again. As I build up the layers, I may add more stringers or coloured glass shards (confetti), powder (frit), paint, imitation silver or gold leaf or copper mesh. The soup pot!

The kiln fires the glass at a temperature of almost 800 degrees Celsius for each fusing. I can set things up in the kiln and have a certain amount of control over what happens but there really is an element of magic with what happens. I never tire of opening up the kiln and finding out what alchemy has occurred.  

Fun with abstract painting

A little while ago I had so much fun with abstract painting using a Gelli plate. I was totally immersed in the whole process and this immersive experience is one reason why I love creating art. I find it akin to meditation. I can’t wait to try this technique out with my glasswork.

Leadlight window repair

I was presented with this leadlight window in very bad condition and enjoyed bringing it back to life.

Daughter's work

At the beginning of the Covid-19 isolation period, my 12 year old daughter made these small (10cm x 10cm) glass tiles for her friends.

Back after a long break.

Back in the studio after a looooong break. Life just got busy. So ….. thanks to Covid 19, I have found time to venture back into the studio down the backyard, with the goats next door in their paddock. They can even position themselves to watch me.

I started doing some tests to get a feel for what I wanted to do. Then there was that familiar feeling of joy again. Other creative folk will relate to that surge of happiness, focus and being consumed by the project.

I wanted to try moving away from solid blocks of colour and experiment with paint. I have screenprinted on to a square of white glass, added some inclusions and a couple of layers of clear. The edges and back have been hand polished, as usual starting with coarse grit and moving down to a finer grit.

Following pics: finished piece - 13cm x 13cm x 1cm and two detail pics. I will pop on my wall pieces pages.

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Current direction

I am starting to move away from the rigid lines that have been a part of my work for so long. I am interested in exploring more free-flowing line forms and having less control over the design, leaving it up to the heat of the kiln for the coloured rods to do their slow dance.  I'm working on a series of these blocks. 

 

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Little hand and feet

In the last post, I briefly mentioned different glass casting techniques; lost wax casting and the other method is an open casting method. The lost wax method is good for intricate detail and where it's difficult to remove clay etc from the mould.

I used a soft modelling compound to form the shape of the hand and the feet and then filled the cavity with molten wax. A plaster mould was then made of the wax and then the wax melted out. I then placed the glass pieces in the plaster mould and fired it in the kiln.

These three little sculptures of my children's hand and feet when they were each 8 weeks old, sit on my kitchen windowsill and so I see them a hundred times a day as my growing children mill around the house.  They are a reminder of those days when they were all babies - an eternity and yet five minutes.