Member’s Spotlight

Richard Roberts

Glass blowing is now my primary glass practice having specialised in kiln cast glass sculptures; this is fitting, as it was glass blowing that inspired me to enter the field of glass in the first place. My glass blowing is a complete antithesis with the often obsession with perfection, repetition, and the overt display of technical ability for its own sake, or all three at the same time, that’s so prevalent in the area of glass. I like to embrace the unpredictability and chance that glass blowing can give while it’s a hot malleable medium. This helps to make each of my pieces unique and almost impossible to repeat – an antidote to the ‘digital’ and the factory made. I introduce bubbles as a means of highlighting the essential reflective quality of glass. Different coloured elements are suspended at different layers to enhance depth and a sculptural quality, and to indicate where there was once movement in its wrestled creation. The finished piece is a time capsule of when it was alive, in flux and a liquid form. I relish the tension & drama between what control and technical ability I have, and what the glass would prefer to do by its own accord!