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Ahuva Zeloof began pursuing her sculpting career after the age of 70 and is now exploring glass as a medium. Here she explains how she found her way to creating with glass and the inspirations behind her work.

You are an accomplished sculptor, but only began following your artistic journey later in life. What led you to start on this creative career?

I was busy bringing up a family and I didn’t have a lot of time for art. I went to galleries and explored and had moments of inspiration, but I didn’t have time to dedicate to a practice, since I have four children.

As it happened, when I was cooking with a friend one day, she said, “Oh, your cookies are lovely. Each one’s exactly like the other. Let’s go and do some art.” Because of the symmetry she saw in my baking, she decided I had arty tendencies, and she invited me to a clay sculpture class. I loved it! It felt like it was a gift to be explored. That’s how I started creating art later in life, in my seventies. It’s never too late.

You have worked with bronze and stone and more recently started using glass. What fascinates you about glass as a material?

I began creating sculptures from clay, which eventually I came to dislike. Then I moved on to wax and bronze, then stone. Each material I explored was interesting in its own way: stone is lovely and tactile, though chiselling is hard work; bronze is malleable and has its own life. But when I saw my first glass sculpture, it didn’t even resemble the original. The interplay of light and darkness, as well as the bubbles in the glass, are fascinating. It completely blew my mind. After that first sculpture, I started experimenting with coloured glass.

What glass techniques have you used, and which do you prefer?

I work with a glass foundry. I take an original sculpture I’ve carved in stone or cast in bronze, then create a mould based off that piece. I may try different colours for the glass and experiment with the technique to see if we can create more bubbles and textures within. It takes a long time. The glass is poured very slowly, little by little, and the resultant sculptures are never the same. Even two pieces done at the same time will look different. You can’t fully control the light or streaks within the glass, and often the process feels more intuitive than scientific.

You mostly focus on the human form as a subject. Why is this?

I used to teach yoga, and yoga is not just about the physical body, but also the body’s soul. When I look at a stone, it’s as if it’s talking to me, and expressing a feeling that I can see – perhaps an inner strength. I do yoga myself, which removes the need for a model, since I know the human body well – especially women’s bodies. When you look at my pieces, you can feel their movement, like a yoga stretch.

What is your creative approach? Do you draw your ideas out or dive straight in with the materials?

I don’t draw. I take a piece of stone, I look at it, I start chiselling, and the form just happens. Even if I make a ‘mistake’, I don’t see it as a mistake, since I can improvise around it. It’s all up there, in the hands and the head. These idiosyncrasies of carving make their way into the glass mould and are re-translated in a second medium when they become glass. That’s an exciting process – the material itself inspires me and it can be amazing to see the glass mimic stone or filter light and shadow to create new meaning.

What message(s) do you want to convey through your art? 

When people look at my sculptures’ faces, they often start asking, “Oh, what is she thinking? What is she doing? What is she going to do?” It’s a kind of meditation, capable of taking you to a different world. When the light hits the glass, they seem to come to life and have their own personalities, dictated by pose, expression, and so forth.

When you look at a piece of art and you’re with it on your own, you start a kind of dialogue; it sparks feelings in you. I’m trying to encourage people to discover their own thoughts through art and to interact with sculpture.

What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?

The most important thing is the mould. I begin with a model made of stone, but you need to do the mould properly before you can add the glass. It’s what controls the thickness of the glass, how it’s mixed, and the colours that it produces.

Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite?

At the moment it’s a piece I call ‘Lovers’, which portrays two women, both pregnant. The future’s open to them, and the two females are together. I like to think that there’s a hopefulness to the piece, especially with how it interacts with light. The glass sculpture can’t be compared to its stone original.

That’s why I continue using glass in my sculptures, because it’s constantly surprising, and you never know what it will look like after it sets and dries. When you open the mould, it’s a whole new world. ‘Lovers’ is my piece for now, but I think the next one I make will be another favourite.

You have had successful solo shows, including exhibiting alongside famous names like David Hockney and Sir Peter Blake. How did these events come about? 

In this industry, sometimes it feels like all you do is submit pieces to exhibitions. You have to put your work out there, enter competitions, speak to curators and artists, and hope that they like the pieces and take them. But it’s not just the exhibiting that’s important to me; I love interacting with amazing fellow artists. If I wasn’t an artist myself, I would never have met them. Having my work exhibited alongside well-known artists like the ones you’ve mentioned, and also Tracey Emin, is exciting, but interacting with other creatives through the process is what truly inspires me.

Where is your creative practice heading next? 

I’m working on an art book (my first!) based on a new sculpture series called ‘Faith’, but I can’t tell you much about it yet. Meanwhile, my next project will involve making new glass moulds from old stone carvings.

I’ve got my own style. Usually, when people look at my sculptures, they say, ‘Oh yes, it’s Ahuva’s work’. In my next collection, I’m hoping that no one will be able to tell it’s mine at first glance. I don’t like being monotonous.

Something else I’m passionate about is developing an exhibition where blind and partially sighted people can interact with sculptures, as they’re often not allowed to touch art. On the flipside of this, I really want sighted people to experience sculpture in the dark, so they can perceive the tactile qualities of the pieces. Part of this is also fostering understanding between able-bodied people and those with reduced vision.

At the end of November 2024, I’ll be taking part in a workshop with a charity for the blind and partially sighted, and I’m hoping this leads to bigger events and workshops on this topic in the future, since I think art needs to be open to everyone.

Find out more about Ahuva and her work via her website: https://www.ahuvazeloof.com

All images photographed by Georgia Metaxas, apart from the image of Ahuva in her studio, which was taken by L Goldblatt.

Netherlands-based architect and glass artist Han de Kluijver talks about his career and how he wants his glass objects to build a bridge between architecture and sculpture.

As a child, I was always impressed by mist in the countryside – the image of cows without legs. And I observed how light plays with spaces. In my final year at the Academy of Fine Arts, I realised that being an artist was not for me. I needed interaction and cooperation, and I wanted to contribute to society. In those days art training was too individualistic.

During a visit to Le Corbusier’s iconic Chapelle Notre Dame du Haut building in Ronchamp, France, I knew immediately that I wanted to become an architect. Sometimes your eyes are opened and you see things in a different light. You suddenly understand things, like you did at school. For example, once you understand the formulas in chemistry, it ‘suddenly’ becomes a fun subject.

At the kilometre-long shrine of Fushimi Inari Taisha in Japan, with its ‘tunnel’ of orange-red gates filtering the greenish light of the forest, I suddenly realised that everything is part of a larger and richer world. At such a moment, the question of what is truly important arises. What endures through time? What is essential?

After completing the Academy of Fine Arts course in the mid-1970s, I studied architecture, graduating in 1982. I also studied urban design, finishing in 1983. Then, in 1985, I founded HDK Architects bna bni bnsp.

Architecture is an ancient art: man has created floors, walls and ceilings for centuries. However, I am convinced that it is still possible and necessary to create completely new architectural forms and shapes. Ever-changing ways of life require this adaptability: our buildings and urban planning have to fit contemporary needs. Old and tested characterisations are insufficient as they primarily refer – in a nostalgic way – to a world that (possibly) no longer exists. This does not mean that we should not appreciate the old. What already exists can also be inspiring. However, for me, the search for new forms, shapes and materials is a very important aspect of architecture. A second essential aspect of the architect’s profession is contemplating space and its arrangement.

During a visit to a glass factory in Sandomierz, Poland, where I was working as an architect, I watched glass plates coming off the conveyor belt and noticed glass blowers in an adjacent workshop making Bohemian glass products. I saw the pleasure they had in working as a team. Inspired, I took a course and began experimenting with glass objects. Later, I met Neil Wilkin and collaborated with him for several years.

I tried blowing glass, but switched to glass melting, as my focus was mostly on forms that I could extrapolate into architecture.

Collaboration has become commonplace, with more and more talk of solidarity and community spirit. This suits me, as both architecture and glass art involve teamwork. Today, I work with craftsman Radovan Brychta, from the Czech Republic, to create my glass objects.

The demarcation of space

Art and architecture can strengthen and influence one another. Explorations into other disciplines can stimulate creativity and innovation, introduce new materials and improve technical knowledge. Nobody is just architect, artist or philosopher. Architects and visual artists are used to thinking in abstract concepts. Several realities can exist side by side. In my work, glass and architecture are always related. The two disciplines are equivalent: both come from a love of craftsmanship, in which the design process is central. In both glass and architecture, the creation has a life of its own. While working on new concepts and conceptions of glass, I research and develop a new language of form, which I may extrapolate to architecture later. By this, in a humble way, I hope to contribute to the spatial design of our living environment.

The design process is the basis for both architecture and the arts. Designing requires a specific attitude and a certain obsession. Once you have mastered that attitude, you can design either objects or buildings, or even parts of cities. For me, drawing is the necessary tool in seeking proportions, visualising space and objects, or documenting observations. As time passes, imagination and observation start to blur and drawing becomes design.

With my glass objects I aim to build a bridge between architecture and sculpture. Of course, there are boundaries between both disciplines: architecture is often more pragmatic in nature, as it is restricted by a client’s wishes and must adhere to construction building laws. And, most importantly, architecture cannot be fiction, whereas art can.

My glass objects only have a visual function, in contrast to architectural structures. But they do tell a story and are conceptual in a way no building could be. An architect creates space with the help of glass walls and facades. My glass objects only create space in a figurative sense. They are a metaphor for the literal space that architecture provides.

Architecture is about making space. The walls are not the most important thing, but the space they create is. The cast glass object is like an architectural creation: an unchanging solid form in space. The walls of my glass objects have the same function as walls in architecture.

Art – with architecture in its wake – plays a leading and vital role in the development of such structures. This is why architects and artists should always maintain a level of curiosity towards a new language of forms and the motivations that shape and re-shape our surroundings.

Find out more about Han de Kluijver via his CGS member page.

Main feature image: ‘Poetry of space’, (924 x 148 x 240 mm). Han says, “It is wonderful to be able to assign meaning, to create something more than just material and form”. Photo: Tomas Hilger.