Glass made using only seaweed and sand will be displayed at Kestle Barton gallery in Cornwall from 9 April-12 June 2022.
The glass was created by St Just-based glass artist Abigail Reynolds in 2019 after she discovered that seaweed was once used as a flux in glassmaking. She decided to change a Cornish beach into glass. Her exhibition, ‘Flux’, shows the glass she made using only seaweed and sand.
Alongside the glass, displayed as mouth-blown roundels, a film made by the artist will be shown, which documents the glass-making process.
After Abigail had spent a summer gathering sand and seaweed, a furnace was built at Kestle Barton in September 2019 to melt these materials to form glass at an event titled ‘Estover’. This word refers to ancient rights to take ‘that which is necessary’ from the land.
She commented on the project, “The beach is a threshold, the moving line between land and sea. Glass is also an indeterminate threshold between fluid and solid states of matter, and this is something of its magic.”
For this exhibition she has also produced a large-scale woodcut print of kelp, the seaweed mixed with beach sand used to make the glass, and a book, entitled, ‘Flux: Glass from sand and seaweed’ (2022).
Close to Kestle Barton, in Redruth, another, permanent arwork by the artist has been unveiled. This window, ‘Tre’, was commissioned by Cornwall Council and stands four metres high in the reference library at Kresen Kernow the Cornish Archive. Tre incorporates glass roundels made from sand and seaweed. It is free to view during opening hours (10am-4pm, Tuesday-Saturday).
Another book by the artist, ‘Tre: A window for Cornwall’ is also available to buy at Kestle Barton. Tre unpicks the threads of meaning woven into the window at Kresen Kernow, and gathers together the voices of writers and academics, who share some of the many diverging stories and histories to be read in the Cornish landscape.
Abigail Reynolds has a studio at Porthmeor in St Ives. She studied English Literature at St Catherine’s College Oxford University before an MA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College. Visit https://abigailreynolds.com to find out more.
Kestle Barton is an ancient Cornish farmstead situated above the Helford River. Following an award-winning conservation and conversion project, the old farm buildings have new uses and one of the barns is now the gallery, which opened in 2010.
Kestle Barton is at Manaccan, Helston, Cornwall TR12 6HU. Email: info@kestlebarton.co.uk, www.kestlebarton.co.uk.
Image: Disk of olive green kelp glass by Abigail Reynolds, 2021.
Glass artists will be taking part in an exhibition at the Fortnum & Mason store in London to mark the anniversary of The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
The Piccadilly retailer has partnered with the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) and the Royal Warrant Holders Association (RWHA) to host four exhibitions between 14 March and 19 June, each celebrating different aspects of British creativity, crafts and making.
The show, called ‘The Art of the Exceptional, a Jubilee Celebration of Makers’, will conclude with the creation of a one-off Jubilee hamper of artisan products made over the four months of the event.
The exhibition will take place across the third floor of the iconic store and every few weeks, the theme will change. The first explores ‘Wicker:Clay:Thread’ (14 March-10 April 2022), followed by ‘Wood:Glass:Paper’ (11 April-8 May) and ‘Leather:Metal:Cloth’ (9-29 May). The Jubilee hamper will be revealed in parallel with a ‘Scent of Summer’ exhibition, celebrating all things floral (30 May-19 June). ‘Typography & Illustration’ will be showcased alongside these works for the duration of the event.
Works in the ‘Cassio’ range will be shown by Katherine Huskie.
Each exhibition will feature work by three of the makers commissioned to produce objects for the hamper, as well as work by other QEST scholars creating in the same field. In addition, Royal Warrant-holding businesses will show their products alongside those of the QEST artisans.
Scott Benefield has been chosen from the glass scholars to make a carafe for the hamper. He will also show samples from his production range of functional glass wares and a unique piece called ‘Albion’ (main image), created especially for this event. Other QEST glass artists exhibiting are Katherine Huskie, Effie Burns, Timothy Harris, Celia Dowson and Grace Ayson. Katherine will show a range of her ‘Cassito’ pieces (see image above), while Effie Burns will exhibit her ‘Box of Delights’ (see image below).
Effie Burns’ ‘Box of Delights’ features precious cast glass objects. Photo: David Williams.
The one-off hamper will be sold with all profits going towards the QEST scholarship.
Jo Newton, Head of Buying at Fortnum & Mason, commented: “For over 300 years we have been creating, making and collaborating with the UK’s finest producers to bring joy into the lives of our customers. We are very proud to be partnering with the Royal Warrant-holders and QEST, and all the makers involved, to create a showcase of products that are inspired by the past, conceived in the present and created for the future.”
Main image: ‘Albion’ (2022) created by Scott Benefield for this event.
The long-awaited new Stourbridge Glass Museum will be opening its doors on Saturday 9 April 2022.
The museum is housed in the former home of Stuart Crystal in Wordsley, West Midlands, which has been refurbished and updated to create a world-class venue with support from the European Regional Development Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, among others. Find out more about its background here.
Visitors will be able to view over 500 items from the internationally renowned Stourbridge Glass Collection, celebrating the heritage of glassmaking in both the local area and internationally. The collection has pieces from the past 400 years, with a particular emphasis on cameo glass, which became a speciality of the Stourbridge Glass Quarter.
Traditional skills will come alive with glassmaking demonstrations by the resident glass artist Allister Malcolm. Incidentally, talented Allister made the glass slipper for the recent film ‘Cinderella’, which was filmed at Pinewood Studios. You can watch how he did it here.
You can also try your hand at creating or decorating your own piece of glass. There are different hot glass taster sessions where you can make a paperweight, jewellery or other glass items. More information and bookings here.
Throughout the museum are fun, interactive, touchscreen exhibits, including one where you can add decoration to a 3D vase or jug on screen using cameo glass, acid etching or cut crystal technique. You drag and drop your design onto the object and can see how it looks as a finished piece.
In addition to the Stourbridge Glass Collection display, the museum will highlight the best in contemporary glass design, too. The first artist to be represented will be Vanessa Cutler. She was featured in Glass Network digital in 2021 when she described how to design glass art using waterjet technology. Read that piece and see some of her beautiful glass work here.
The next exhibition at Stourbridge has been arranged in conjunction with the Contemporary Glass Society (CGS), to celebrate the organisation’s 25-year anniversary. Called ‘CGS at 25: Then, Now, the Future’, it will feature glass luminaries such as Elliot Walker and Ayako Tani, among others, who have been invited to participate by the CGS. This exhibition will take place from 22 July until 31 October 2022.
The Stourbridge Glass Museum opens to the public at 10am on 9 April 2022.
US-based David Willis takes a cross-disciplinary approach to his glass practice and has produced a diverse body of work during his career. He focuses on the idea that the most intimate and important aspects of an individual’s life are common to all people. Linda Banks finds out more.
What led you to start working with glass?
I began flameworking glass after becoming friendly with a flameworker, Bob Snodgrass. I watched him work for a few years on and off in Eugene, Oregon (in the USA), when I was passing through or visiting. I was drawn to his fun and creative approach, which featured lots of curiosity about the material and interest in investigation. I asked to join his apprenticeship programme. He agreed, and we started working together in 1994.
One of David Willis’ larger scale installations, ‘Daisy’. These pieces are taller than a man, as shown by David Willis standing on the right of the photograph.
You use a diverse range of techniques to create everything from large sculptures to delicate frit paintings. Do you have a preference for any particular method?
I don’t know that I prefer any one method, although flameworking feels the most like home – a bit like driving my truck to go camping or hiking. The driver’s seat of the truck is a comfortable and familiar place where I have spent a lot of time, but I’m excited to get to a new destination and walk around and explore.
Whatever process I’m using, at some stage I notice that I’m micromanaging small amounts of material to build something larger. So, I guess I find myself and my zone in different methods. This can make them all feel somewhat the same… So again, no real preference.
‘Over LA’ demonstrates the finest skills with pate de verre technique.
What is your creative approach?
I once found a quote from the artist Louise Bourgeois where she’s talking about two types of creativity. One is an idea that comes in a flash, more or less fully formed. The other is an idea that needs to be studied and planned and considered at length before the final design is realised. She suggested that you’ve got to have both, and that you have to be able to “think hallucinatorily”. That has always resonated with me.
‘Pushing up daisies’ features flameworked borosilicate glass in a mirror box.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?
I guess if all tools were to be stripped from me, I would want to keep my bench burner torch, a Carlisle CC. It has great range and allows me to make pretty large sculpture and pretty small and detailed botanical work. Most of my other processes I can do by hand with raw materials. But I do think that, because hot glass will burn the blank out of you, and you can’t touch it with your hands, glassblowers might be tool fetishists… I certainly love a lot of my tools as helpers and beautiful objects.
‘In the garden’ is created in pate de verre technique.
What message(s) do you want to convey to your audience through your intricate work?
I think most of my work is Nature based and my basic message is to care about Nature, because, ultimately, it supports our existence. And I feel we may be at a dire intersection, with hard decisions to take about what is good for individuals versus what is good for the future of our species. So, I hope my nod to Nature is a little reminder of this to folks.
Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite?
I don’t know that I have a favourite piece. A piece of glass I made that I admire a lot is the flowering peach branch in ‘Still, life…’ But that is not my favourite piece. I hope that my favourite piece is somewhere in the future.
This peach branch sculpture demonstrates David Willis’ skill in flame worked glass.
You are actively involved in the glass arts community. Why is this important to you?
I feel like the glass arts community has introduced me to an awful lot: friends, something like a career, knowledge, inspiration, people I look up to, a partner, my daughter… So, I’d like to support these systems by trying to impact them in ways I find meaningful and important. There is so much potential and creative capital within the glass arts community. As Bruce Mau said, “The future will be beautiful, if we have one.” (I met him at Pilchuck Glass School when I was teaching and he was an Artist in Residence).
What is next for your glass practice?
One of the things I like best about my practice is that I let my curiosity lead, to a large degree. This keeps me always working in an investigative mode somewhere in my studio on any given day, which is exciting and engaging. So, I don’t really know what’s next, and I’m ok with that.
Currently, in terms of what people haven’t seen yet, I’m working on some mixed media sculpture with glass and stainless steel, and some sculptural forms built from cursive text in borosilicate tubing.
David Willis gets ‘hands on’ with his art.
Where do you show and sell your work?
Since about 2010 I’ve worked primarily with David Austin at Austin Art Projects and it’s been great. He’s fantastic and I owe him a lot.
Do you have a career highlight?
I have a bunch, not necessarily in this order: when Lino Tagliapietra asked if he could take a picture of me and my work at one of my shows; praise I’ve had from Sally Prasch and Cesare Toffolo; being honoured for artistic mastery in glass by Salem Community College; Kiki Smith talking about me in the New York Times; Art in America describing a piece in the Whitney Biennial I made for Jim Hodges as “exquisitely crafted”…
Who or what inspires you?
I’m inspired by the forms and scale and beauty of Nature, and the forms, scale and beauty of the people in my life. My work with, and relationships to, artists I am fortunate enough to have in my life inform my practice. Right now, I’d highlight Jim Hodges, whose beautiful work is so personal to him, Therman Statom, who does so much with his work for other people, Paul Rucker whose work draws out beauty from very difficult places… I could go on at length.
‘Rainy Day Dream Away’ installation.
Has the coronavirus impacted your practice?
Absolutely, in many ways. Also I’m a new dad with a two-year-old daughter and my partner, her mom, is immunocompromised… So it’s been pregnancy and newborn life, followed closely by lockdown and baby life, into now a parenting an unvaccinated child and toddler life. All of this has affected my practice. We are definitely cautious and a bit isolated.
Plus, the travel that has always been part of my work has been cancelled, and will be until our daughter has some protection from the virus. Fortunately, all of this creates a hugely rich home life and we are very privileged to be comfortable, and healthy and happy, and able to spend so much of this formative time of our daughter’s life together.
But I wouldn’t call this the most materially productive time in my career, and I do like to work.
‘Figure’ exemplifies David Willis’ mastery of flameworking.
About the artist
David Willis holds a BA in Interdepartmental Field Studies from UC Berkeley with an emphasis on Social Change and a Minor in Conservation and Resources Studies.
He has been a part-time lecturer at the University of Washington, School of Art, Art History and Design. He has also been an instructor at the Pilchuck Glass School, the Corning Museum of Glass Studio, the University of Oregon, and the Penland School of Craft.
He has been a featured artist at the Niijima Glass Art Festival in Japan and has demonstrated many times for the Glass Art Society (GAS).
His work is included in public, private, and museum collections nationally and internationally.
In addition to his own practice, Willis has assisted some of the world’s top contemporary artists to create sculptural work in glass, including Jim Hodges, Kiki Smit, and Urs Fischer.
Serving on the Board of Trustees of the Pilchuck Glass School, Willis co-chairs the Green Committee and the DEAI Committee and is a past Director of the GAS.
As part of its packed programme of Silver Jubilee celebrations and exhibitions in 2022, the Contemporary Glass Society (CGS) is working with the National Glass Centre (NGC), in Sunderland, to present the show ‘It’s All in the Technique’.
This exhibition, launched in January 2022, showcases artworks by artists who demonstrate the very best in glass skills, using a wide range of techniques. The show closes on 13 March 2022 so there is still time to visit.
‘Storm in a Teacup’, (2018) by Katharine Coleman. Photo: Katharine Coleman.
The artists selected are: Scott Benefield, Katharine Coleman, Vanessa Cutler, Andrea da Ponte, Dominic Fonde, Katherine Huskie, Joshua Kerley, Jessie Lee, Verity Pulford, Cathryn Shilling, Dr Helen Slater Stokes, Nancy Sutcliffe, Ulrike Umlauf-Orrom and Muna Zuberi.
The selection panel, which included Julia Stephenson from the NGC, had the exciting job of choosing work that showed the range and amazing techniques used in glass making, from engraving to casting, blowing to waterjet cutting.
The judges were overwhelmed by the diversity and quality of work, but finally selected the 14 artists listed here to represent the very best of contemporary glass art.
The show takes place at the NGC, from 15 January – 13 March 2022. Find out more about the NGC here.
Main image: Jessie Lee’s ‘Hurricane’, (2018). Photo: Simon Bruntnell.
The 2022 Amanda Moriarty Memorial Prize offers the chance to win a five-day residency at The Glass Hub in Wiltshire.
In 2017, Amanda Moriarty, a long-serving Board member and Honorary Treasurer of the Contemporary Glass Society (CGS), passed away. To celebrate her enthusiasm and encouragement of glassmaking, CGS offers this annual prize in her memory.
The residency will enable the winner to extend their practice, with the assistance of the Glass Hub directors, Helga Watkins-Baker and Katrina Rothe, and the Glass Hub team.
The aim is to develop original ideas, with the potential to produce a new piece of work or project through to a finished piece. This can be in kiln, hot glass or lampworking techniques, or a combination of all.
The Glass Hub provides extensive glass-working facilities, supported by a dedicated team to foster individual creative growth and expertise. It runs glassmaking courses in glassblowing, fusing, lampworking and kiln working, plus many specialist techniques for all abilities, from beginner to master.
CGS will pay £300 towards accommodation/travel during the residency.
This is a fantastic opportunity for glass artists at all levels and at all stages of their careers to step back, take time and explore their potential in well-equipped studios alongside established tutors and artists.
We know that there will be a great deal of interest in this prize, so please tell us all about yourself and what you hope to achieve in your application.
A short list of four artists will be selected from all the applications. They will be interviewed via Zoom by members of the Glass Hub and the CGS Board.
The winner will be announced in early May 2022.
The residency will take place in Autumn 2022, subject to studio availability. Final dates will be confirmed by The Glass Hub.All CGS members can apply for this Prize by completing the application form and returning it to admin@cgs.org.uk . If you are not yet a member of CGS, why not join now to take advantage of this great opportunity? The application form is available via this link on the CGS Noticeboard.
The deadline for applications is Monday 4 April 2022.
Read about the experiences of some previous winners of the Amanda Moriarty Memorial Prize: Calum Dawes and Cara Wassenberg.
Image: Amanda Moriarty, in whose name this annual prize is awarded.
Ginny Ruffner’s ‘anything is possible’ attitude has led her to use many different media and technologies in her art and public installations. Her recent work features Augmented Reality to help the viewer interact with the display. Linda Banks, Glass Network digital’s editor, finds out more.
You are a respected and long-established artist who works with a variety of different media. What led you to start working with glass?
As a painter in graduate school, I was studying Marcel Duchamp’s artwork on glass panels, entitled ‘The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even’ (also known as ‘The Large Glass’). It is such an evocative, mysterious and inspiring piece of art that I was moved to investigate working with glass.
Can you tell us something about how you developed your pioneering lampworking methods? How have they evolved?
In the early 1970s I was introduced to lampworked borosilicate glass. I realised that lampworked glass had a lot of undeveloped potential, both due to its underutilised physical properties, and its history. I had so many ideas of what could be created with this medium, but no skill to realise any of them.
I managed to secure a position as an apprentice glassblower. My aesthetic evolved in tandem with my lampworking skill. I wanted to create structures that had balance, strong construction values and visual ‘flow’. Also, I wanted to try merging lampworking with painting skills to create sculpture that had more narrative content.
My belief that anything is possible has propelled me to try many different ways of working with many different media through the years.
‘Secret Life of Painting’ (7’’ x 7.75’’ x 20.5’’) shows Ginny Ruffner’s love of combining artistry with deeper meaning. Photo: Mike Seidl.
Do you draw your designs out or dive straight in with the materials?
Both.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?
A pencil is my favourite, because you can record thoughts and ideas in a way that they can be recreated in your mind later.
Your glass sculptures are bright and bold. What message do you want to covey to your audience through your intricate work?
I want everyone to continue to be aware of beauty.
‘What’s Really in the Space Between Integers’ (22” x 18” x 13”). Photo: Mike Seidl.
You push the boundaries of what contemporary craft means through incorporating the latest technologies in your installations. Can you tell us why and how you used Augmented Reality in your ‘Alternative Mythologies’ and ‘Reforestation of the Imagination’ works?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a new way of layering the art experience; one that provokes the imagination. This is always a goal of my work. AR requires some action of the viewer (to enable deployment), thereby making the art experience one of interaction and viewer intention.
The ‘Alternative Mythologies’ exhibition at the Oxbow Gallery allows visitors to interact with the objects and make AR discoveries. Photo: James Harnois.
Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite?
Actually I have two:
First, ‘The Urban Garden’. This is a 30-foot high kinetic water feature in downtown Seattle in the USA. It is a favourite because of its scale and its location. It is a 30-foot tall bouquet of flowers in a pot. The flowers move and the red watering can tips and waters the pot every 15 minutes.
‘The Urban Garden’, by Ginny Ruffner, is located at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel, Seattle, USA. This picture shows her at the opening in front of the giant flower pot.
The second is ‘Mind Garden’. This was an installation at the Seattle Art Museum that included 30,000 freeze-dried roses and several large steel and glass sculptures. It is a favourite because it smelled great and was referential to the beautiful garden that is one’s mind.
The ‘Mind Garden’ installation is a favourite of Ginny Ruffner. Photo: Mike Seidl.
What direction will your art take next?
Who knows? Probably more tech – tech that doesn’t exist yet.
Where do you show and sell your work?
I usually sell my glass work at Austin Art Projects in Palm Desert, California. Typically, my work is shown at museums or in permanent public art settings.
‘Reforestation of the Imagination’ AR installation at the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian.
ROTI combines traditional sculpture with AR. By using technology to overlay digital information onto sculptural objects, two disparate environments are portrayed.
The initial environment consists of five barren land masses which support the colourless glass stumps. Apart from the painted shelf, mushrooms and painted tree rings on the stumps and logs, the scene is colourless. The five land masses surround a sixth rocky outcropping with a beautifully grotesque bronze and fibreglass tree. This central tree, made of various materials (fibreglass, bronze, plastic) that have survived this devastation, is returning to a familiar canopy shape.
The barren landscape comes alive with AR technology, revealing bright, new plant life.
At first glance, the devastated landscape appears to be barren. Yet, upon viewing the tree rings aided by AR technology, a second environment is revealed. Plants appear (both fruit and flowers) which have evolved from existing flora. They have developed dramatic and beautiful appendages and the skills necessary to adapt and flourish in this new, radically different environment. From accessing nutrients in ways that symbiotically improve their surrounding conditions, to developing new protections from new threats, these adaptations are unexpected, beautiful and optimistic.
This is nature reimagining itself. The imagination can’t be exterminated. It just recreates itself.
Who or what inspires you?
Nature. Thinking. Reading.
Ginny Ruffner has devoted her career to pushing the boundaries of art and is not afraid to try new materials and approaches.
About the artist Seattle-based artist Ginny Ruffner trained at the University of Georgia as a painter, graduating with honours and an MFA in painting.
She has had 88 solo shows, several hundred group shows, and her work is in 55 permanent museum and public collections around the world. Seattle public art installations include a 30-foot tall kinetic water feature downtown and a permanent installation in the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park.
Recent Augmented Reality projects include ‘Weston Riff’ at Photo Center NW, ‘Branches’ at Seattle International Film Festival and ‘Poetic Hybrids’ at Seattle Art Museum.
She has written two books and been the subject of an award winning, full-length documentary titled, ‘A Not So Still Life, the Ginny Ruffner Story’.
Ruffner has lectured and taught extensively and served as an artist-in-residence at schools and universities around the world.
Italian glassmaker, Simone Crestani will be holding a solo exhibition of his ‘Façon de Venise’ collection at the Scene Ouverte gallery in Paris in March. This show is his tribute to the historical techniques of glass on the island of Murano.
In a universe inspired by the majestic power of nature, Crestani’s work combines tradition and modernity. The forms of the past find new life in a contemporary craft. His research into historic Venetian techniques has led him to celebrate history with works exuding a timeless elegance.
Crestani pushes the technical and artistic boundaries of his discipline, without ever forgetting that art and history are intimately linked. Glass is the very subject of his works. In his creations, the utilitarian aspect fades and gives way to sculptural forms.
At the age of 15, Crestani began an apprenticeship in a glass workshop and discovered a deep bond with glass. He worked as an artisan for a long time to perfect his skills. Today, he creates artistic works in his eco-sustainable studio that respects the environment.
See the exhibition from 10 March to 30 April 2022 at Galerie Scene Ouverte, 72 rue Mazarine, 75006 Paris, France. Website: http://galerie-sceneouverte.com/en/
One of the objects in the exhibition will be Crestani’s covered goblet, ‘Metamorfosi’. This unique piece uses colourless, mould-blown glass and features a baluster stem and a handle with a beetle, as shown in this detail shot. Photo: Alberto Parise.
Main image: A collection of Crestani’s vessels featuring stems with knops and applied sculpted octopuses. Shown: a flute made of transparent, black glass; two transparent, black glass goblets, and a ‘Veronese’-style vase of transparent black glass.Photo:
Leading glass artists from around the world will be showcasing their glass blowing skills at the ‘Melting Pot: Hot Glass Gathering’ event, on Friday 18 and Saturday 19 March 2022.
The event, organised and hosted by Plymouth College of Art in the UK, will be an opportunity for beginners and professionals in glass, plus members of the public, to experience the drama and beauty of hot glass, blown in real time by internationally renowned glass artists.
‘Melting Pot’ brings together live-streamed hot-glass demonstrations and lectures, in person and remotely, with some of the most exciting artists working in glass today. Featured artists and studios include: Elliot Walker, winner of the second series of Netflix’s glass blowing competition, ‘Blown Away’; Wave Glass in Murano, Italy, and the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The show is part of the UK’s national celebrations for the United Nations-designated International Year of Glass in 2022.
Gayle Matthias, an artist and Plymouth College of Art’s Subject Leader for BA (Hons) Craft & Material Practices, is the organiser and curator. She commented, “Plymouth College of Art is one of the few remaining Higher Education institutions in the UK where glassblowing techniques can be studied, which makes it vital that we join the international celebrations planned for the UN International Year of Glass.
“Melting Pot will join a global programme of activities that include congresses, industrial fairs, artistic exhibitions and books designed to highlight and celebrate glass technologies’ significant contribution to advancements in the arts and sciences. This is a very exciting opportunity to open our doors and show off some of the drama and beauty of this mesmerising art form.”
Plymouth College of Art’s hot glass workshops and Plymouth Art Cinema (located at Plymouth College of Art, Tavistock Place, Plymouth, PL4 8AT), will be the hub for activities including hot-glass demonstrations by Elliott Walker, Bethany Wood and Andrew Collins, plus live-streamed demonstrations from Italy and The Netherlands.
Melting Pot will also feature regional collaborations in England with the Contemporary Glass Society, Rhizome (an artists’ collective which includes Plymouth College of Art alumni), Cornwall Ceramics and Glass Group, and Teign Valley Glass in Devon.
Teign Valley Glass (located in the Old Pottery, Pottery Rd, Bovey Tracey TQ13 9DS), will open its studio doors to different glassblowers, who will demonstrate their skills in situ and via a live streaming link to Plymouth College of Art.
Some activities are open to walk in on the day, while others, such as the Elliot Walker and Bethany Wood demonstrations, must be booked on Eventbrite in advance. All tickets are free of charge. See the full event schedule on the Plymouth College of Art website here: https://www.plymouthart.ac.uk/melting-pot
Plymouth College of Art has a wide range of design studios and workshops that include specialist facilities for glass, ceramics, metal and wood, alongside rapid digital prototyping facilities in Fab Lab Plymouth. It offers courses that give students the opportunity to reinvent craft for the 21st century, including BA (Hons) Craft & Material Practices, MA Craft & Material Practices and MA Glass.
The Contemporary Glass Society (CGS) has an exciting opportunity to show your postcard-sized glass art at the International Festival of Glass this summer.
In 2022 the Commonwealth Games are coming to Birmingham, UK. In recognition of this event, the CGS invites glass artists to celebrate the amazing countries and people of the Commonwealth through an exhibition of 100 small and unique glass works. All submissions will feature in an open show at this prestigious Festival, taking place in August 2022 at Stourbridge, UK.
Over the last couple of years, many of us have not been able to venture abroad, so the CGS chair Susan Purser-Hope, says, “Let your imagination take you around the world instead. In this year of the Commonwealth Games, let’s celebrate the diversity and richness of the many countries and territories that make up the Commonwealth in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania.
“Take a magical mystery tour and send us a glass postcard inspired by a richness of countries, from Australia to Zambia, Bangladesh to Malta, Brunei Darussalam to Vanuatu.
“Commonwealth countries are diverse – they are among the world’s biggest, smallest, richest and poorest countries. Celebrate their sites, fauna and flora, sea world, agriculture, industry and uniqueness in a small piece of glass holiday memorabilia.”
To make it fun and challenging, all pieces of work will be offered for sale for £50, £75 or £100. There will also be prizes.
‘Holiday Heaven’ is a free-to-enter, unselected show, open to all CGS members. If you would like to take part but are not yet a member, why not join here?
The deadline to register is 31 March 2022 and the exhibition dates are 26 August-23 September 2022.
CGS is grateful to Mark Holford and Alan J Poole, who have sponsored this exhibition.
For more information and to download the application form click here.
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