Echoes of Glass update

Echoes of Glass (part of the Black Country Echoes festival) has been open nearly two weeks now, and we had our official opening last week - complete with press and local dignitaries! Here is the cutting from our local newspaper, Express & Star:
Rather unfairly, there's no picture of Carol Griffin or her wonderful work in the article. I'll rectify that right now, with another photo taken at the opening:

Carol Griffin, presenting one of the pieces from her Traces of Glass series to Keith Smith, Sales Manager at Tudor Crystal
(with Terri Colledge and me in the background) Photo: Rob Griffin

There's also a great video piece by José Forrest-Tennant, which captures the memories of four sisters who all worked at Stuart Crystal, one of the local glassmaking factories - a good giggle.

The exhibition is open weekdays until 3 October 2014, at Plowden & Thompson, New Dial Works, Stewkins, Stourbridge, DY8 4YN.  It will then move down to the Ruskin Glass Centre - opening as part of the Black Country Echoes Heritage Weekend being held at the Webb Corbett Visitor Centre on Saturday 11 and Sunday 12 October 2014.

Echoes of Glass

Over this summer, I've been involved in a project for Black Country Echoes, looking at the role of women in the Black Country's glass industry since WWII. The final exhibition is now up and running at Plowden & Thompson, the home of Tudor Crystal (the address is Stewkins, Stourbridge, DY8 4YN).  Come down and have a look - it'll be open weekdays, 9.30am to 3.30pm from 10 September to 3 October 2014.

As well as my work, you can see the work of three other Ruskin-based artists: Terri L Colledge (cameo glass and enamelled glassware), Carol Griffin (enamelled copper) and Jo Newman (kiln-formed glass). There's also a display of Tudor Crystal, and a variety of Plowden & Thompson samples (including some fascinating industrial glass and special commissions).

In addition to the exhibition, you can take a tour behind the scenes at the glass factory: Mondays to Thursdays there will be full tours at 10am, 11am, 12pm (these will usually include glass blowing and cutting); there's also a tour at 2pm (with cutting only).  On Fridays, there will only be a 10am tour. If you'd like to book your tour in advance, you can call 01384 392525.

After Plowden & Thompson, the exhibition will tour to Ruskin Glass Centre and Dudley Archives. Though I may need to make my piece a little smaller for those venues..!

Stourbridge Open Studios

It's time to do a little last-minute marketing for the Stourbridge Open Studios event, which will be happening next weekend:

Jo Newman, one of the artists based at the Ruskin Glass Centre had a brilliant idea last year - to create an Open Studios network in and around the Stourbridge area.  Thanks to her determined steering, we will be opening our doors for the first official event on the weekend of 18 & 19 May.

May's Open Studios is the "test-bed" event, based entirely at the Ruskin Glass Centre - so that lessons about marketing and organisation can be learnt on a relatively small (and friendly) scale.  But the aim is to spread the network in the future, to include artists, studios and makers from the wider area.

There are 18 studios at the Ruskin Glass Centre (they aren't all focused on glass: have a look at the centre's "studios" page). So there's already plenty to see next weekend.  But as well as on-site artists/makers there are two additional highlights involving people from around the country:

Simon Bruntnell (a photographer with a studio at the Glass Centre) is a partner in an online glass gallery, Bruntnell-Astley.  Simon will be hosting a Pop-Up Gallery event for the weekend, showing Bruntnell-Astley artists.  The image on the right is his poster for the pop-up event - so you can get an idea of the stellar line-up! (The work that you can see in the poster is by Laura Birdsall)

And last, but not least, there will be the Black Country Echoes exhibition (you can see the poster for this on the left).  This is an exhibition of glass, metal and ceramics work from applied arts students at Wolverhampton University - including Tim Boswell (a previous winner of the Glass Sellers' Student Award at the British Glass Biennale)

If you can make it down to the Ruskin Glass Centre next weekend, please come along!  And feel free to share the information with anyone you think might be interested...