Calum Dawes was awarded the 2021 Amanda Moriarty Memorial Prize, provided each year by the Contemporary Glass Society. This time, the prize was made possible by the generous donation of time and assistance of glassmakers James Devereux and Katie Huskie. They provided two sessions of two days at their Devereux & Huskie Glassworks. Here, Calum describes his experience and what he gained from the opportunity.
I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity, which allowed me to further develop a body of work I started in lockdown, and to explore otherwise unattainable scale and complexity.
At the initial session with James and Katie, in early November 2021, we spoke about form and scale.
Then we made a series of vessels, some of which were much larger than I had previously attempted. We also experimented with colour overlays, as well as form.
Two of the bowl forms. The larger one is called ‘Capsize’ and the smaller one is ‘Octopus Chilli Soup’.
This was a great experience. I have not worked with makers to produce glass in this way before and, once I adjusted to it, it was really enjoyable.
Next, I took these vessels back to my studio and selected the ones I would like to take further. I spent many hours over a few weeks painting imagery onto the interiors of the bowls with vitreous enamels.
One of the reasons that this was such a valuable experience was knowing I would have James and Katie’s help. This meant I could commit to creating much more detailed imagery, safe in the knowledge that the bowls were much more likely to be successful.
In the end I decided to paint two of the largest vessels and a set of four smaller ones. Inside I painted marine life and somewhat surrealist imagery, which I think worked well with the liquid-like optics of the glass when filled and sculpted.
Detail of ‘Capsize’ vessel, featuring delicate imagery applied in vitreous enamel.
Once the bowls were completed, I very carefully posted them back to Devereux & Huskie. We brought the bowls up in the kilns overnight and the next morning James picked them up, flashed them to fire the enamels fully, then put them back in the kilns. Then they were filled with a mass of glass before smoothing out and sculpting the surface of the ‘liquid’ using the hot torch.
The largest of the bowls were extremely heavy and would have been very difficult to handle without the skills and setup at Devereux & Huskie.
Immediately before putting the pieces away, we added small, sculpted details to the surface of the glass.
It’s always exciting to see the painting fired and then transformed by the mass of solid clear glass. It was wonderful to see it form out of the bench.
I am thrilled with the results and learned a lot about refining the process. I also understand better what works, in terms of scale compared to the level of detail in the imagery, and how the solid glass affects the optics.
The experience has taught me about how working with other artists can realise more ambitious projects, and helped me to assess what I think is effective about this work.
Again, I am extremely grateful to be given this opportunity and I’m very excited to continue with this body of work.
Find out more about Calum Dawes and his glass here.
Main image: Calum Dawes (right) discussing the creation of one of his bowls with James Devereux as Katie Huskie looks on.
Here Helmut Ricke shares his recollections of Erwin Eisch, a pioneer of the studio glass movement and founder of Bild-Werk Frauenau in Germany.
It didn’t hit the glass world unexpectedly, but still it came as a shock, as a turning point and at the same time as a conclusion. Erwin Eisch, the last representative of the founding generation of the International Studio Glass Movement, died on 25 January in Zwiesel, near Frauenau, Germany, at the age of 94.
Thus ended the life of an artist whose importance for free working with glass, in Germany and far beyond, can hardly be overestimated. His historic role as inspiration for Harvey Littleton on his crucial European trip in 1962 is undisputed. His work built the bridge from Europe to the USA for modern glass.
The stages of his long artistic life are well known: 1946 to 1949 an apprenticeship as a glass engraver in his father’s workshop, 1949 to 1952 and 1956 to 1959 studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he was also a member of the artists‘ group SPUR; in 1960 shaking up the Munich art scene with the group RADAMA, and their spectacular exhibition for the fictional artist Bolus Krim. His return to Frauenau and work in the family business there, and soon at his own furnace.
From 1960/61 he undertook intensive “provocation of form” through freely designed non-functional vessel objects; 1962 saw his first solo exhibition in Stuttgart and the beginning of the friendship with Littleton and, from 1964, numerous trips to conferences and courses in the United States, Europe and Japan.
In Frauenau, with Eisch’s participation, the glass museum got off the ground. Bild-Werk Frauenau was founded as an International Summer Academy. Symposia were organised and the idea of a Bavarian Forest National Park and other projects in the region were promoted.
The focus of Erwin Eisch’s art was, for him, the human in the broadest sense. This applied above all to his painting, which was always a priority, but also to his glass works, with which he always endeavoured to achieve the spontaneous, emotional effects of his painting. When working with glass, the hot material formed directly at the furnace became his very own medium. The behaviour of the flowing, molten glass mass in the fire, which became the starting point for the Studio Glass Movement, remained his preferred means of expression throughout his life, and he never renounced its spontaneous effect.
Erwin Eisch with his good friend Sam Herman at Frauenau in 1967. Photo: Gretel Eisch.
He often used moulds prepared by his wife, the sculptor Gretel Eisch, for his objects. These pieces were then shaped through free forming at the furnace and subsequent painting, gilding and engraving. Short titles, quotes or half-sentences often became the carrier of meaning. The occasional poetic cut of these words was always part of the overall effect and encouraged the viewer to engage with the work.
Every inch a man of conviction, Eisch fought for his views throughout his life. Formative experiences in the Nazi era, in the war and in the immediate post-war period formed an important background for his life and his creative work, but did not prevent him from often giving his work a humorous edge.
Conversations with him were always lively and eye-opening. If you met him in exhibitions or jury meetings, there was always engaged discussion. But for him it was not about being right, or about self-aggrandisement or one’s infallibility, but about a firm attitude that had to be defended.
Erwin Eisch will be missed not only because of his art, but also as an unmistakable voice in the discourse of international glass art.
By Helmut Ricke
Main image: Erwin Eisch at his solo exhibition at the UK’s National Glass Centre in 2013, with his ‘Narcissus’ installation in the foreground. This was a version of his important 1971 piece and went to the V&A museum in London.
Note: Bild-Werk Frauenau has published an online ‘book of condolences’ featuring many pictures. View it here.
Glass artist Alison Lowry’s solo exhibition, ‘The Bystander Effect’, confronts the treatment of pregnant women and unmarried mothers in Ireland over the past 300 years.
Having been shown at Golden Thread Belfast in 2021, this thought-provoking installation has moved to An Táin Arts Centre in Dundalk, Ireland, where it is on show now until 26 March 2022.
As Lowry explains, “The academic Dr James Smith coined the term ‘Architecture of containment’ to describe the systems and physical infrastructure that were utilised to incarcerate women and children in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries in Ireland. These institutions included: Industrial schools, Children’s ‘homes’, Mother and Baby Institutions and Magdalene Laundries.
“Women and children were ‘hidden in plain sight’ in these religious and state-run institutions, ostracised and ‘othered’ by society. The ‘shame’ that the unmarried mother brought to her family and the (complicit) wider community meant that after delivering her baby in secret, the mother was frequently coerced into signing her baby away to be adopted or placed into a children’s home.”
Attempting to exhume Ireland’s most recent past, and its subsequent intergenerational trauma, Lowry’s work draws on the recently published research reports, ‘Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries in Northern Ireland’, the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry and the McAleese Report.
The exhibition employs windows salvaged from a derelict Industrial school as a construct and metaphor, and as a physical memorial to seeing/not seeing what was happening.
The piece ‘#onemillionbabyshoes’ calls for the graves of the hundreds of thousands of babies and children who died in these homes all over Ireland to be marked appropriately.
The trauma – still suffered by birth mothers – is explored through performance, video and sound in the work ‘Lost to Me’.
‘They all had names’ was documented outside the gates of Milltown Cemetery in Belfast where it is estimated that 35,000 babies lie in the Bog Meadows in unmarked mass graves.
‘Apology now’ demands that the recommendations laid out in the Hart report are finally acknowledged by the State. ‘Stained’ glass is created using testimony from the Hart report and an adult survivor’s drawings of his time spent in Nazareth Lodge Boys Home in Belfast.
Finally, ‘Dirty Laundry’ examines institutional legacy using aerial performance, sound and a costume created from napkins recovered from one of Ireland’s last standing Magdalene Laundries.
The An Táin Arts Centre is at Crowe Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth, A91 W20C Ireland. The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm. Website: https://www.antain.ie
Glass artist David Patchen uses cane and murrine to create his distinctive patterned glass work. CGS Glass Network digital’s editor, Linda Banks, finds out more about him and his distinctive artwork.
What led you to start working with glass?
I was always curious about glassblowing and how glass was manipulated while molten. In my mid-30s I was working in technology in Silicon Valley. I attended a demonstration at a non-profit glass centre in San Francisco at the end of 2000 and was captivated. I signed up for a beginning class that day. I loved blowing glass so much that, over the next 10 years, I evolved it into my profession, going full-time with glass in 2012.
Midnight Quillon (31″ x 16″ x 6″). Photo: Simon Bruntnell.
What glass techniques have you used in your career and why do you have a preference for multi-layered cane and murrine?
I’ve tried just about all hot glass techniques. Some are great for abstract imaging, representational work or uniform colour. But I was most attracted to the precision, detail and intentionality of design that murrine and cane offer.
David Patchen squeezing a hot plate of murrine patterns. Photo: Corning Museum of Glass.
What is your creative approach? Do you draw your designs out or dive straight in with the materials?
It all starts as patterns for me. Early on, I would sketch pattern ideas; both to consider colour and design, and to record ideas I liked for future use. But I haven’t done this in ages.
Now, the morning that I make murrine, I already have a vision of what to make, or a colour combination I want to explore.
Another approach is thinking about something I’ve done in the past but riffing on it by changing colours or patterns. I create in 10-or-so ‘series’ or forms, and sometimes I will make murrine patterns with these forms in mind. Other times, I figure out what form I want to create after the murrine are made and cut and I’m arranging them into a mosaic for blowing. I keep my forms clean and simple because they are really just three-dimensional canvases for the composition. I don’t want the form to distract from, or fight with, the murrine.
Aqua/Spring Ellipse (18″ x 15″ x 4″). Photo: David Patchen.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?
I love tools, so this is hard for me to answer. I love jacks, because they are truly handmade, and I appreciate the care and skill that goes into making them. When well done, they glide smoothly across hot glass, shaping creases, curves or straight sides. I have many, from master toolmakers in Italy, the UK and Japan.
I also love the newspaper pad. It’s virtually free and the simplest, yet most flexible, tool to shape hot glass. Eight pages of newspaper are folded to a desired thickness, soaked in water and the excess is squeezed out. This flexible pad is held in your bare hand against a turning molten glass bubble, allowing the glassblower to shape it as it inflates. The hot glass rides on a layer of steam generated by the paper. A newspaper pad brings you the closest to actually being able to touch the glass.
Dewdrops (36″ x 47″ x 12″). Photo: David Patchen.
What message(s) do you want to covey to your audience through your intricate work?
It varies somewhat by piece and series, so this is difficult to answer generally, but some themes are: – Colour relationships and the unexpected – Movement and the sense of freezing it in time – A sense of wonder through exploration into unknown realms – Architectural structures on a micro level and how they relate – A sense of mystery, both hidden and revealed (specifically in the ‘Bloom’ series).
Steel Blue Bloom (21″ x 17″ x 12″). Photo: David Patchen.
Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite?
This is always a tricky question. Each work is a unique creation and feels a bit like offspring. Because my work is intentional in design, I always have a good sense of what it will look like completed, but occasionally one is even better than I anticipated. That might be my favourite for a time, until it’s off to a gallery or collector and I make another that surprises me with how it was better than I imagined. And the cycle repeats.
Cerulean/Lime Foglio (19″ x 12″ x 3.5″). Photo: David Patchen.Cerulean/Lime Foglio detail. Photo: David Patchen.
You are actively involved in the glass arts community. Why is this important to you?
As an extrovert, I both enjoy the pure social aspect of it and the friendships that are made. I also love learning and helping others when I can. The sharing of knowledge in such a small, and poorly documented, field but is so important for everyone’s growth and enjoyment.
You have been working with the British glass artist James Devereaux on some collaborative sculptures. How did this come about and how have you found the experience?
As the glass world is quite small, James and I met initially through social media. Then we met in person at a conference in Murano and hit it off. In 2019, James mentioned he was going to be teaching at Pilchuck Glass School and proposed heading to San Francisco afterwards to do some collaborative work combining my patterns with his forms. It sounded creatively interesting and good fun, so that’s how it began.
When James was scheduled to be in town, Public Glass [San Francisco’s non-profit centre for glass, art and education] was holding a fundraising party and invited James to be the demonstrating artist. So we made our first collaborative Clovis sculpture on a Thursday and our second one during his demo in front of a few hundred people.
Since then, we’ve continued our collaborations during covid through email, text messages and me shipping pattern blanks from San Francisco to him in the UK. To date we’ve made 10 collaborative works, with another seven planned. We’re thinking about shows in 2022.
Aqua/Hyacinth Ellipse (17″ x 14″ x 3.5″). Photo: David Patchen.
Where do you show and sell your work?
My work is consistently represented by a dozen galleries across the US and Canada. It’s been shown at shows and galleries in Europe occasionally, too.
Do you have a career highlight?
It is so hard to pick just one. It was fun spending a weekend trading emails with Elton John, while he selected a grouping. Another was installing sculptures on a ship while cruising around the North Sea. Demonstrating in front of 3,000 people at the Corning Museum of Glass was exhilarating. Spending a month in Japan blowing glass and exploring the culture was amazing. I look forward to more travel post-covid.
Who or what inspires you?
Rarely anything inspires me directly. But occasionally I’m inspired by colours in textiles or nature, or structures in science or architecture.
Has the coronavirus impacted your practice?
Covid shut down my work for 3.5 months at the beginning of the pandemic, as the studio was closed. This was the longest interruption I’ve had in over 21 years of blowing glass and getting back up to speed was uncomfortable. It also cancelled two solo shows, at least one demonstration, lots of travel and a couple of group shows.
In exchange, I did enjoy spending a lot of time with my family, including my now 9- and 7-year-olds.
In contrast, 2021 was quite a good year. I worked consistently, found a fantastic new assistant and demand for my work has been strong. I think this is probably due to collectors’ desire to add beautiful objects to the homes they have been spending so much time in through this pandemic.
I feel fortunate to have found something I’m so passionate about, and I’m very appreciative when others enjoy my creations.
About the artist
David Patchen is internationally known for his colourful and intricately patterned blown and hot-sculpted glass. His mastery of the murrine and cane techniques and use of vibrant colours results in large work that is detailed, precise and exciting. His work is frequently exhibited in shows and is in many private collections.
His book David Patchen: Glass is in the permanent collection of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, the Glass Study Centre Library in Venice, Italy, and the Rakow Library at the Corning Museum of Glass.
He is actively involved in the glass arts community as Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors at Public Glass, former member of the Pilchuck Leadership Council and Board of Directors, Glass Alliance of Northern California. He has a private studio at Public Glass where he creates his work.
The United Nations-designated International Year of Glass (IYOG) launched today (10 February 2022) with the official opening ceremony taking place over two days in Geneva, Switzerland.
Log in via this link to watch the live broadcast (the recordings will be available after 11 February if you miss the live versions – simply search ‘International Year of Glass’ in the search box on the UN Media website to find the speaker presentations).
The opening event takes place at the Palace of Nations in Geneva and features 30 world-class speakers. Talks highlight the latest thinking on how glass can aid the development of more just and sustainable societies alongside the most recent scientific and technical breakthroughs.
Opening the event on 10 February was Alicia Durán, chair of the IYOG 2022, with the General Secretary of the United Nations António Guterres, the Spanish Ambassador at UN Spanish Mission in NY, Agustín Santos Maraver, the Permanent Representative of Turkey at UN, Geneva, H.E. Sadık Arslan, the Minister Plenipotentiary/Deputy Permanent Representative of Egypt, Ahmed Salama, along with the Science and Technology Counsellor, Permanent Mission of China in Geneva, Shen Yanjie.
For the full programme of speakers and topics, follow this link.
Glass artist Sini Majuri is exhibiting her work at The Museum of Fine Arts Eemil in Finland.
The work on display explores the theme of ‘Home’ (or ‘Koti’ in Finnish) via poetic blown glass. Sini explains, “Home is something that defines us: who we are and who we want to be. Home can mean chaos or a serene, safe haven. It can be dangerous, or loving. During the pandemic, particularly, the idea of home has evolved into new dimensions.”
To mark the UN’s International Year of Glass, she wanted to highlight the diversity, co-operation and vitality of Finnish contemporary glass through this exhibition. The aim is not only to shape the material of glass, but also the whole creative field and its future.
“Studio-made glass is an expressive medium that can give shape to a feeling, the visible and invisible levels of existence,” Sini continues. The theme of home is mirrored by her use of multi-layered interpretations of the classic Graal glass blowing technique. “Glass’s story follows the logic of a dream and home is also a metaphor representing a person’s psyche. An important part of the narrative is how our own viewpoint affects the ways we see each other.”
The exhibition is on now and runs until 17 April 2022 at the Museum of Fine Arts Eemil, Suistamontie 3, 73100 Lapinlahti, Finland. Opening hours: Thursday and Friday 11am-4pm, Saturday-Sunday 11am-3pm. Find out more: https://www.eemil.fi/english/
Image: Glass art by Sini Majuri on show at the Museum of Fine Arts Eemil.
The Contemporary Glass Society (CGS) is sad to report that Erwin Eisch died at the end of January 2022 at the age of 94. He was a founder and pioneer of the studio glass movement, as well as a talented painter and print maker.
Eisch’s unconventional approach to glassmaking had a profound impact during the formative years of the international studio glass movement, and his relationship with American glass pioneer Harvey K Littleton forged an important link between European and American studio artists working in glass.
In 2013 the National Glass Centre (NGC) hosted a major retrospective of Erwin Eisch’s work, ‘Clouds Have Been My Foothold All Along’. The works the NGC acquired as a result of this exhibition formed the foundation for its permanent collection of international studio glass.
Eisch is known particularly for his glass heads, one of which is shown here.
One of the glass heads designed by Erwin Eisch.
The CGS sends its condolences to the Eisch family.
Grab your chance to exhibit your glass art on the theme of ‘Earth/Sea/Sky’ in the prestigious gallery at London Glassblowing this July.
This event is part of a packed programme of events and exhibitions being held throughout 2022 to celebrate the Contemporary Glass Society’s (CGS) 25th anniversary and the UN-designated International Year of Glass.
As London Glassblowing is run by Peter Layton, one of the founding members of CGS, this a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with him on this exciting show.
One of the heartening consequences of the pandemic has been the bringing together of the UK-based glass community and artists in general. In recognition of this, the ‘Earth/Sea/Sky’ exhibition will focus on works created through various forms of collaboration. This collaboration may be between different artists, shown through using different techniques, or by creating in different materials.
Your ’Earth/Sea/Sky’ artwork should be a response to collaboration via one of the below:
An artist combing different glass making techniques to create a new piece of glass work
An artist collaborating with another CGS member who uses a different glass technique to create a joint piece of work
An artist combining different materials or found objects to create a new piece of glass work where at least 50% is glass
An artist collaborating with another artist from a different discipline to create a joint piece of work in different materials.
This is a selected show, curated by eminent glass artist, Cathryn Shilling. Applicants must be current members of the CGS. If you are not yet a member, you can see all the benefits available and join here.
Deadline for applications is 5pm (UK time) on Friday 25 February 2022.
The show will take place from 1-23 July 2022 at London Glassblowing Gallery, 62-66 Bermondsey St, London SE1 3UD, UK.
For further information and to download the application form click here.
Image: A view across the gallery at London Glassblowing.
Collect, the international contemporary craft and design fair, returns this month, with a physical show at Somerset House in London from 23-27 February 2022, plus an online exhibition at Artsy.net from 23 February.
Now in its 18th year, the 2022 hybrid fair, organised by the Crafts Council, builds on Collect’s successful digital-only event in 2021.
The fair opens for VIP previews on 23 and 24 February, and to the public from 25-27 February.
Collect features a selection of exhibiting galleries, representing some of the most exciting international craft artists working today, from the emerging to the established. The work is all made in the last five years by living artists and designers, allowing each gallery to curate its own display and commission new pieces or bodies of work especially for Collect.
The exhibits span many craft disciplines, including glass, ceramics, lacquer, art jewellery, precious metalwork, textiles, fibre, wood and paper, as well as works using non-traditional materials like resin and bone.
Galleries and organisations representing the glass world physically or in the online exhibition include Bullseye Projects, Flow Gallery, Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections, London Glassblowing, North Lands Creative and the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST).
US-based Bullseye Projects will present printed glass work from emerging artist Anthony Amoako-Attah that incorporates traditional designs and symbols from his local Ghana. Meanwhile, dichroic glass by Dawn Bendick will be highlighted by Joanna Bird Contemporary Collections. Both artists have been shortlisted for the Brookfield Properties Craft Award, among a group of five artists selected from the 350 artists showing at Collect 2022. The winner will be announced on 24 February 2022.
Dawn Benedict’s glass art will be featured at Collect 2022.
Alongside the international galleries’ displays, craft installations by emerging artists will be presented at Collect Open. A total of 13 projects by artists and collectives from Chile, France, Israel and the UK will be on show. Glass artists Lisa Pettibone and Laura Quinn are among those taking part. Lisa Pettibone will be showing a kinetic installation entitled, ‘Instrument of Thought: A meditation on matter and light’. She received an Arts Council England National Lottery grant to complete and install the project.
There will also be a programme of talks presented by the Crafts Council live and online.
Collect is open to the public at Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA, UK, from 25-27 February 2022, between 11.00-18.00 daily. Tickets and visitor information is available from this link. Early general admission bookings made before 3 February 2022 save 20%.
The show is available to view online via Artsy.net from 23 February until 6 March 2022.
Frans Wesselman imparts his amusement with the everyday minutiae of life through his eye-catching stained glass designs. Here he speaks about his work to Glass Network digital’s editor, Linda Banks.
You are an artist who enjoys painting and printmaking. What led you to start working with glass?
In 1998 or 1999 I visited Salisbury Cathedral, not for the first time, and became aware of the ‘Prisoners of conscience’ window, which was painted in the 1980s by Gabriel Loire. I thought it so beautiful and so impressive that I wanted to try my hand at stained glass.
There are some similarities between printmaking and stained glass, in that a certain amount of planning and working in stages is common to both. So, I had a go and it seemed to work.
‘Coming home’ stained glass panel (30×30 cm).
What glass techniques have you used in your career and why do you have a preference for the methods you use today?
I am a strictly two-dimensional person and, having come from painting to glass, I have only ever worked with stained glass. However, on occasion, I bond pieces and/or mount several in front of one another on a plinth, which is as close as I get to a third dimension.
Frans Wesselman at work on one of his quirky stained glass designs.
Can you tell us something about how you developed your glass working methods? Do you draw your designs out or dive straight in with the materials?
Not having had any formal training, it started as trial and error. But over the years I have observed other people, and on occasion worked with others, and learned lots. When I make a new piece, or get a commission, it starts with ideas in a sketch book. From there I will make a colour sketch in watercolour and then draw the cut line. That will have lots of detail, so that I can trace from the cut line straight onto the glass. The tracing gets fired and then any shading, sand blasting or silver staining follows the tracing.
Frans makes detailed designs for new pieces, this one being in watercolour.
What is your favourite tool or piece of equipment and why?
A dip-pen. Virtually everything I do starts with a pen drawing. I even use one for tracing on to glass. Mixing the paint with clove oil allows it to flow from a pen. I don’t know quite why, but I am just comfortable with it. I was given a glass pen holder in Venice once, and I still like using it.
Your quirky designs have a sense of fun. What message do you want to covey to your audience through your work?
‘Message’ is a rather big word… The things that are my subjects are the smaller things in life, the interactions between people or people and animals or people and the things in their head, and chance encounters. A kind of visual poetry, maybe. I am as concerned as the next person about the big issues, but I have not found a way to introduce them in my work that convinces me. The sense of fun, of wonder, is something I do experience and I hope I can convey that to others.
‘A Winter’s Tale’, stained glass panels on plinth, (45x35x9.5cm).
Do you have a favourite piece you have made? Why is it your favourite?
That is not an easy question. The moment I have finished something, I am aware of all the flaws. Sometimes, when I see a piece after several years, I can appreciate it better. My favourite piece is always the one I am about to make.
What I do really like are the sketch books of my travels, or the portrait sketches of friends, because of the memories associated with them. They are done quickly, of course, without any other object than to catch that moment, that view. I don’t take a camera when I go away, so the drawings are what there is. They are also often the basis for other work. My ‘Rickshaw’ piece is straight from the sketch book.
This piece, ‘Auto rickshaw’, (23x21cm), was based on a quick sketch.
Where do you show and sell your work?
There are a number of galleries around the country that regularly take my work; Primavera in Cambridge, For Art’s Sake in London, the Old Chapel Gallery in Pembridge, McGillDuncan in Castle Douglas, Montpellier in Stratford, plus the Bevere Gallery in Worcester. I also get approached for commissions.
This ‘Garden window’ was a private commission (117x104cm).
Do you have a career highlight?
Just over ten years ago I designed and made a series of windows associated with ‘Godiva awakes’, an Olympics-related project based in Coventry. It was interesting and required a lot of research. However, though I made the windows, the building they were intended for was never built. As far as I know, they are still languishing in their crates somewhere. More recently I made a set of ‘Creation’ windows for a private chapel. They were installed and enhanced the small building, as I hoped they would.
Who or what inspires you?
Any number of things inspire me – things I see, things that I have experienced myself, or that someone tells me about. Then there are things that I read, like poetry, the Bible, Shakespeare.
I like drawing. I do quite a bit of life drawing. I may just go out to see what I can find. Sometimes I go through my old sketch books and find things that I think I can do something with.
Part of the stained glass panel ‘Midsummer Night’ awaiting leading.
How has the coronavirus impacted your practice?
It hasn’t really impacted me in the sense of making things, but of course all exhibitions were cancelled in 2020 and events only began coming back slowly in 2021. Nevertheless, I have continued to receive commissions. When everything stopped in March 2020, I did quite a bit of painting and I think I have made some progress there. I also did quite a bit of cycling; it was a lovely Spring.
This ‘Cheshire cat’ (30cm diameter) was made for a porthole on a narrow boat.
Is there anything else you want to add?
As a teenager I thought it would be good to be a painter. From then on, I did everything I could to achieve that goal. It has worked out quite different to what I imagined; I feel I have failed to get anywhere near those artists that I admired. It has been hard work and, at times, quite difficult, financially. But it has been so interesting, and I am still enjoying what I do every day.
About the artist Frans Wesselman R.E. was born in The Hague, Netherlands. Between 1970 and 1975 he studied for a diploma to teach art and art history in Tilburg, Netherlands, followed in 1977/1978 by a diploma in print making and photography at the Akademie Minerva, Groningen, Netherlands.
He has been a Member of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers since 1982.
He exhibited at the British Glass Biennale in 2006, 2008 and 2019, and is represented in several galleries.
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