Gillian was participating in the N Fife Open Studio so it was a great opportunity to go and see her work in person and catch up. I had loved her presentation at the Arts and Science conference at DJCAD. Her glass works are beautiful and reference cosmology and astronomy. I had been considering investigating glass as a material to make a lantern to manifest the work I have been doing on bees and the notion that bees are the guardian of light and plants throughout the winter months.
Gillian was very generous with her time and knowledge. She works with a glass artist in England and it has taken them several years of working together to create these wonderful pieces that challenge the traditional craft of glass blowing. As I am less than knowledgable about how glass blowing works, I cannot say how the combination of Gillian’s creativity and the glass tradition have come together to make something new. They are beautiful though.
What I understood clearly though, was that glass blowing requires 2 people. It is an expensive process, not because the material is expensive but because the power used to heat glass to the huge temperatures required is very expensive. Gillian’s advice was to find a glass artist and work in partnership. This is something that I would love to do but will not be able to achieve this, in order to make work, in time for the MFA show on 31st July – around 12 weeks from now.
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