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..!

Vitrum Balticum VI: Optical Outlook

Good News - I am officially an international glass artist!  My Revolution pieces have been selected to appear in an exhibition in Lithuania - Vitrum Balticum.  This is the sixth edition of the exhibition, and has the theme "Optical Outlook" - which I thought was perfect for these pieces:

Revolution, Georgia Redpath, 2014 (photo: Simon Bruntnell)

Luckily the jury agreed, and the pieces are now winging their way to Kaunas in Lithuania.  Keep your fingers crossed they arrive safely - I spent a full day with the packaging!!

If you happen to be in Lithuania over the next couple of months, please feel free to drop by and check on them for me! The exhibition takes place at the MK Ciurlionis National Museum of Art (their website has location and opening times). There are over 60 artists from 18 countries taking part - so there should be plenty of gorgeous glass to enjoy.

Laser Cutting at Black Country Atelier

Lots to think about this weekend: yesterday I did the Introduction to Laser Cutting course with David Brannon at Black Country Atelier.

This photo shows my first experiments during the class. We used the open source vector graphic program Inkscape to create the drawings. These were then transferred into LaserWorks - the program which actually controls the laser.

By varying the speed and power of the laser, you can achieve different results: cutting or etching to different depths. (You can see two different etching depths in the 'Red' and the 'path' of Redpath)

Our test pieces were done in 3mm birch ply - but it's also possible to cut cardboard, leather, acrylic and even glass..! Different materials need different speed/power settings.

If you're based near Birmingham, I'd recommend Black Country Atelier. The course was a great taster - and once you've had the intro, you can book to use the laser cutter by the hour. I will definitely be visiting them soon!

Shape Shifters

I've been working on a new series of work in the past month - the Shape Shifters - and realised that it was about time I posted some background info (and images) on my blog!

The Walkers (Shape Shifters) Image: Simon Bruntnell

As usual with my work, they started life far from the kiln (and indeed the studio): on my living room floor.  While Francis reads the paper on Sunday, or we watch an old movie, I often sit on the floor with a cutting mat, some cardboard, and a Stanley knife (my favourite tool).  Footling about is what happens next - sometimes it goes somewhere, sometimes it doesn't.  That week I was messing about with concentric squares.

I started rotating/twisting the concentric squares - which gave a satisfying spiral.

That, of course, made me wonder about other geometric shapes - would I get a nice spiral with those too?  And at that point I resorted to some help from the computer.  (When I move beyond squares, I find that SketchUp achieves far better hexagons and pentagons than a pair of compasses and a protractor..! I can then print them out, and use them as cutting templates)

And you also get the chance to play with your shapes on the screen, to save your index finger from unnecessary cutting! The screen grab here, shows my pentagon templates all stacked up and rotated.

And the spirals worked well with the triangles and hexagons too.  So my Sunday afternoon at the cutting mat soon ran into Sunday evening...and Monday morning...as I cut out lots of geometric shapes. The photo on the left shows the triangular and pentagonal stacks.

These various stacks were then enclosed in boxes and varnished with Shellac, so that they could be cast.  My first casts (of the squares) were done in gelflex (middle photo).  But I  wasn't that pleased with the final result.  So I moved on to try a soft grade silicon (photo on the right).  It isn't as economic as gelflex - because it can't be reused.  But it is stronger (and seemed to give a sharper result too).

And these "positive" rubber moulds, I made the kiln moulds for the glass. Again, the silicon moulds produced the best results (so I've now made my square Shape Shifter mould in silicon too!) As you can see from Simon Bruntnell's photo of the test pieces, the first glass came out relatively well.  Please note that these have been coldworked (they aren't fresh from the kiln)!

Now I want to do some further work on the colours and the presentation. I'm thinking of casting the shapes in Jesmonite as well as glass - so that I can start building up some tessellations.

Deep Blue: Folding

In my last blog post, I introduced you to the lovely Georgian decanters from Broadfield House Glass Museum. Now I'll try and explain how they inspired my final piece...

My normal glass casting method is based on the collagraph printing technique: I build up a relief collage in textured paper and card, from which I make my moulds.

And this is how I started the project - working in my sketchbook with patterns based around the diamond cuts on the decanters, and experimenting with different textures and relief levels.


But it just didn't seem right to be working in a two dimensional format: it wasn't doing the decanters justice.  The sketchbook work did, however, remind me of a folded box form from the book Paper: making, decorating, designing by Beata Thackeray


Using this as my starting point, I started researching / experimenting with folded paper forms - again using the diamond cuts as the inspiration.

Anyone interested in this type of folded form should definitely take a look at the work of Paul Jackson. As well as doing brilliant paper sculpture of his own, he has written books covering all forms of paper engineering. They all include great "basics", ideas to play with and real inspiration:
 - Structural  Packaging
 - Folding Techniques for Designers
 - The Pop-Up Book


However, once you start making taller three-dimensional forms in glass, you need much longer kiln times - in particular because they need to be annealed for such a long time to avoid temperature differences within the piece. For that reason I was keen to simplify - and perhaps create a "unit" which could be repeated to make a larger form.  I took the yellow folded form above as my starting point (because it reminded me of Sam the Eagle from the Muppets..!)

By cutting down the height of the yellow model to just two layers (between the horizontal lines) and adding a top and a base, I found a unit which would tessellate - and also sit - in a number of different ways.  I now had to think about how I could go about casting multiples in glass.  More about that next week..! 

Deep Blue: Inspiration

Lots to catch up with on the blog front..! 

I'm going to start with some posts about Deep Blue - a piece which I made for an exhibition at Broadfield House Glass Museum: Back to the Future (catch it until 27 January 2013)

The Museum invited West Midlands glass artists to propose new pieces of work - taking inspiration from their collections and archives. Broadfield House has a great collection (I've already done a post on their wonderful glass owls) - so it's definitely worth a visit.  Plus, there's the added bonus of seeing glass blowing in action - glass artist Allister Malcolm has his hot glass studio on site.

from Broadfield House Glass Museum (Image: Simon Bruntnell)

Although I have an obvious soft-spot for the owls, it was this pair of Georgian decanters from the 1780s which actually sparked my imagination. 

It was the colour which hit me first - they couldn't help but stand out from the crowd.  Let's face it, most modern cut crystal is clear/colourless - but in the 1780s these must've been really unusual!

And it wasn't just the colour, but the form too. I like to image that Norman Foster had popped into the Museum just before he designed 30 St Mary Axe (aka the Gherkin). Modern architecture has nothing on these beauties!

Tune in later this week, to find out how the decanters made me abandon my glass (albeit temporarily) in favour of some large sheets of paper, a pencil and a ruler.

Birmingham joins Pugin Celebrations

A chance reading of a retweet last night from Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery has alerted me to the fact that we are celebrating Pugin’s bicentenary this year.  Two hundred years since the gothic revivalist and ever-so-slightly-decorative master was born.  

Definitely the kick up the behind I need to go and explore the interior of St Chad’s Cathedral – as it’s rumoured to rival the Houses of Parliament.  And the kind folks at Birmingham Museums / the Pugin Society have put together a trail of other Pugin highlights found in the city.  (Apparently available at city tourist offices now, though I won't be in Birmingham to grab mine until Saturday.)



Hardman Design - for auction(!) at Biddle & Webb, 2 March

As part of a host of bicentennial celebrations in Birmingham (see information here), there will be an exhibition at the Museum of the Jewellery Quarter – opening on 22 March.  This will feature the work of John Hardman Jr, who produced a lot of the metalwork and stained glass for Pugin right in the heart of Birmingham. 

I think, between the trail and the exhibition, it looks like I may just get my glass fix!

Made in the Middle - Pt 2

Over the weekend I posted about the glass on show at Made in the Middle at the MAC.  However, that only covered three of the 35 artists / makers exhibited, so I think it's only fair to add some non-glassy highlights.  From a personal point of view, I was really pleased to get the chance to see work by both Norman Cherry and Amy Twigger Holroyd - so I've picked them as the focus for this follow-up post. 

My interest in Norman Cherry comes from his links with the University of Lincoln - he became Dean of the Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design there a couple of years after I graduated, so I was naturally keen to see his jewellery on display. 

I rarely wear jewellery, and don't spend as much time as I should looking into cabinets.  A shame, as when I do, I'm regularly floored by the works of small-scale precision you find inside.  This is perhaps to be expected from someone who was Professor at Birmingham's School of Jewellery. But I also felt an affinity for the pieces themselves - as they rely on whispered geometry (so subtle that it's almost become natural). And although they are six entirely individual pieces, they also have a shared language which allows them to speak together as a whole. A skill to be envied.

This link should take you to a catalogue which includes larger images of a few of the pieces on display. 

I've had a bit of a soft spot for Amy Twigger Holroyd since I heard her speak at a Designer Maker West Midlands seminar last year.  She managed to enthuse an audience full of makers with her personal approach to marketing...for which much respect is due! 

While she certainly makes her own covetable knitwear, the work on display focused on her "pattern blagging" and "stitch hacking" techniques.  I hadn't known about this side of her work, and am a big fan of the stitch hacking.  This is where second-hand garments are altered (and I'd definitely say upcycled) by unpicking and then reconfiguring the stitches.  This was used to add text to sweaters (pictured above) - and worked well for me, as the technique subtly plays with texture, light and shade.  As these are adapted, rathered than fully designed pieces, the hacking was cleverly used to raise questions of authorship.

Amy was also involved with the Apprenticeships in the Making scheme which Craftspace ran prior to the exhibition. There was some brilliant (and sometimes touching) footage of the four apprentices, who'd worked with Amy and two other artists in the exhibition: Jennifer Collier and Kevin Grey. Amy had enthused one of her apprentices so much that he'd asked for his own knitting machine!

I've still only skimmed the surface of the work on show at Made in the Middle - which feels very unfair, when there was so much talent on display.  To relieve my guilt, can you please make sure to go and see the rest!  Made in the Middle is on at the MAC until 15 April 2012, and then goes on a tour of other venues in the Midlands (Click this link for tour details).

Made in the Middle

It’s been a wonderful day in the West Midlands – peerless blue skies, and a feeling that Spring is definitely just around the corner.

While the boyfriend scurried down to London to watch his team, I enjoyed a more laid-back afternoon - taking in an exhibition at the MAC (Midlands Art Centre). Outside, Cannon Hill Park was throng, with lots of people out enjoying the sunshine – and long queues at the ice cream van (remember it’s February!). It was almost a shame to go inside the arts centre.

Made in the Middle doesn’t look jammed with work: it has a simple, clean layout. But it actually manages to pack in work from 35 artists / makers. I had a cake break after my initial look – and when I came back, found work that I hadn’t even seen the first time round! So if you get chance to visit, definitely give yourself a decent chunk of time.

The exhibition is run by Craftspace every three years, and it aims to showcase the best in craft from the Midlands.  It therefore covers all craft disciplines.  I’ll report on my other highlights in a couple of days. But first and foremost, the glass!

There were three glass artists on show: Stuart Akroyd, Charlotte Clark and Vanessa Cutler.

Stuart Akroyd works with hot glass techniques. I regularly see his work in gallery shops – but it tends to be small-scale objects, like perfume bottles.  So this was a great chance to see the larger-scale side of his practice. First up was a wall work, Shoal, where adapted "plate" forms have been grouped against a white background – with the colour and cold working throwing shadow and colour onto the wall.  A great addition to the exhibition was an area where you could pick up and examine elements and materials from people’s work – and a piece from Shoal was included in this section.

Also on display, was a pink and green charger – which was just singing: the lights were casting a beautiful pool of colour onto the plinth beneath, and picking out the patterning.

By contrast, Charlotte Clark’s cast work deserved to be outside in the sunshine. All the pieces showed off great control of texture and colour - but I don’t think the lighting did them justice. Compare my image with those on her website (ok, I know it's not the best snap, but still...) This is often a problem with three-dimensional cast glass in galleries…it cries out for a stronger (dare I say it, natural) light - which might be the ruination of other work. This is definitely a potential problem to ponder for my own work.

Vanessa Cutler’s work, however, was shown to full effect: two pieces exploring creative use of water-jet cutting skills. In these pieces, however, the water-jet has not been used to cut the glass. Instead, it has been used like a needle: to penetrate the surface and into the depth of the glass at points on a regular grid. Each penetration looked like the ghost of a nail. At first glance, you could be turned off: the precision says machine, rather than maker. But for me, there is artistry in those edges: the thick glass chosen gives you an alternative view into the pieces – showing off myriad reflections and repeats which are in stark contrast to the peaceful surface grid pattern.

Well that covers the glass portion of the exhibition - more on my other favourites in a couple of days!

British Glass Foundation

Having posted about those fantastic Owls at Broadfield House Glass Museum, I suddently thought it might be worth a quick post to let people know about the work of the British Glass Foundation. 

The organisation was set up in response to the threatened closure of Broadfield House - and so aims to make more people aware of the outstanding glass collections and archives held by Dudley Council.  But the Foundation is also interested and involved in the wider glass world - both heritage and contemporary.  So, if you have an interest in glass, click this link to access their website: British Glass Foundation.

Back to the Future

I've had some great news this month: my proposal has been selected for an exhibition at Broadfield House Glass Museum - "Back to the Future".  The pressure's on, as the exhibition will take place during the International Festival of Glass this summer - so there should be lots of glass-obsessed visitors!

Back to the Future will celebrate 400 years - yes, that's four hundred - of glassmaking in Stourbridge (in the West Midlands).  Contemporary glass artists were asked to propose work inspired by the historic glass collections held by Dudley Council - which runs Broadfield House.












If you're close enough to visit the Museum, I'd recommend it - there really is something for everyone.  One of my favourite finds during this project was the cabinet of glass owls - the "Wilkie Cooper Collection".  The pictures show just a tiny taster!  I was definitely tempted to use them as the inspiration for my proposal - but went in an entirely different direction.  More on that another time.

Heart of Glass - now at Bilston Craft Gallery

And I thought that the beginning of the year would be quiet...doh!  It's more than halfway through February before I make my first post of the year...

First up, some exhibition news.  Chance Moments, my book-based work, is currently part of an exhibition - Heart of Glass - in the First Floor Gallery at Bilston Craft Gallery.  The picture above (image: Simon Bruntnell) shows one of the five handmade books.  It's a joint exhibition with three other glass makers: Vic Bamforth, George Jackson and Jo Newman, and runs until 10 March. Like me, they all have studio spaces at the Ruskin Glass Centre.  It was great to see the exhibition come together - as we all use glass in such different ways.

Bilston's Main Gallery is showing an exhibition called Kitchen Garden so there is plenty to see if you get chance to visit.

The First Floor Gallery is a great space, which Bilston Gallery hires out to local (ie West Midlands-based) artist / makers.  There's plenty of wall space, lots of light and some well-designed plinths. And a big plus: the gallery were really helpful during set-up - providing drinks, a toolkit (which proved useful even though we'd brought our own) and invaluable assistance.  We'd never had it so good!  If you'd like to use the space yourself, further information is on the Bilston Craft Gallery website.

Secretive urban nature

This week, I've been busy making bindings so I can turn an edition of The Urbanites into books.  The deadline is next Tuesday - when Simon Bruntnell has been booked for a photo-shoot! (Simon took the image above, of an oak-framed edition of The Urbanites).

The glass came back from acid dipping yesterday - so it has been a mad scramble to get the individual pieces seated within their respective book blocks.  I've just screwed the first one together (the binding uses book screws / interscrews)...it's looking hopeful. 

Presenting the pieces as books was the original concept for the collection: you have to take the trouble to open the book to appreciate the beauty within.  Just like the nature within our towns and cities...

Expect some photos next week!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new blog site for Redpath Glass - well Georgia Redpath really, because Redpath Glass is  simply my business name.