Towards Spring…

We have been treated to some superb snow this month.

The past few months has been a busy time for teaching. I have done a number of glass projects in local primary schools. I love this work, it is so inspiring to work with children and get them enthused about glass!

One particularly inspiring project was to make 2 bowls with kids at Ysgol y Frenni on the theme of “patterns in the environment” (or “patrymau  yr ymgylchedd” as the entire project was undertaken through the medium of Welsh!).

I designed this as a patchwork of glass so that each child could work on their own design and then we could put them together to make a group piece. The bowls will be entered in the Urdd Eisteddfod in May.

In another project we made fused glass jewellery on the same theme.

The kids were so enthusiastic, they said it was their favourite day at school  EVER!!

Rachel and I have just run a “Landscape into Glass” 4 day course at my studio here in Pembrokeshire. We were teaching our students mark-making and layering techniques and ways of working with firing paint, silver stain and frits in combination with pieces of Bullseye glass. We are planning another course for later in the year.

Sue Thorne mark making with firing paint

Cathryn Shilling decorating her “embryos” with silver stain

We had a couple of field trips to absorb the landscape and to visit local artists studios, like that of ceramicist, Adam Buick and glass artist, Steve Robinson. The course was very successful and we are planning another for next year.

At Adam Buick’s studio, St. Davids

Frances Arkle at Steve Robinson’s studio, St. Davids

Visiting Carreg Coetan, a Neolithic burial chamber in Newport.

Apart from that I have been developing some new work in the studio looking at taking painting into glass. Sarah Harman and I have been working on our quarry project, having meetings with the National Park and technical specialists to help us hone down our ideas and firm up our budget so that we can apply for funding to make and present the work in 2014.

I have just heard that I have been successful in my funding bid to Wales Arts International for support to attend the American Glass Guild Conference in Florida in May where I have been asked to give a paper and run a workshop. I am planning a trip that includes visiting glass artist friends, Jane Bruce and Michael Rogers and spending time at Corning Museum of Glass and in New York. It will be a very inspiring trip, my first time in America, and a total contrast to life in rural West Wales!

Brooklyn Bridge

Newport Bridge, Pembrokeshire

 

Turning Of The Year

The trees are totally magnificent at the moment! I love winter and am enjoying the crisp and the soggy days and soaking up inspiration for my work.

A very exciting development is that I am going once a week to the Department of Architectural Glass at Swansea Metropolitan University where I have a Visiting Artist arrangement whereby I exchange working with the students for access to the facilities and expertise in the department. I am working with the first years on their “Decorative Processes” module with the fabulous Lisa Birkl. It is wonderful to go there and for one day a week to concentrate solely on playing with ideas. It makes me realise how much of my time at home is taken up with admin, writing proposals, answering emails and generally making a living, and how rare it is to have uninterrupted creative time right now…I can feel a New Year’s resolution coming on! This term I have been playing around with the sandblaster, developing my skills and trying things out. I am definitely going to invest in a sandblaster soon.

Alongside this I have been developing my work in Welsh and English medium local schools and have made a total of 200 glass Xmas decorations with pupils aged 3 to 11 over the past month. It has been fantastic to work with the children and to spread the word about glass to a new generation! Their work is beautiful.

This has been quite a year for me from installing the Conwy Castle commission, winning the Warm Glass Prize, going to the Northlands symposium, collaborating with Sarah Harman on the Rosebush project, studying with Antoine Leperlier, and now working in Swansea – I am really beginning to feel things start to come together.

I am now putting the final touches to my New Year show ready for the opening on 27th December. For the first time I am showing a series of glass panel alongside my paintings. Pop in and join us for a glass of mulled wine from 27th december – 7th January.

 

lindanorris

It has been such an amazing 10 days at the International Festival of Glass that don’t know where to begin…

Firstly, I had four days in Wolverhampton doing a masterclass with Antoine Leperlier. Antoine is a French artist whose use of glass casting techniques derives from working with his grandfather,François Décorchemont, who, in turn had learned from his father, Emile Décorchemont (b.1850), who was studio assistant for Gerome. This depth of heritage resonates through his work. Glass is his language, and he uses the peculiar properties of glass to explore his primary themes which are an exploration of the human condition in relation to the fourth dimension, time.

Obviously, in four days you can not hope to learn so much, but the experience of working with Antoine and absorbing his seriousness of purpose was incredible.

In the evenings we attended various exhibitions and openings connected with the International Festival of Glass. A visit to the Glass Afloat show at Bodenham Arboretum was particularly memorable. It was fascinating to see how other glass artists have made work for a site specific external location. In particular I was impressed by Jacque Pavlosky’s piece made from cut glass found work. Jacque was a fellow student on Antoine’s course.

Following on from this masterclass, I went to Stourbridge to attend the International Festival of Glass. This event centres around the British Glass Biennale which showcases work from among the best in British studio glass.

Gorgeous piece by Cathryn Shilling.

Piece by Louis Thompson which won the Best in Show Award.

James Lethbridge’s breathtaking ‘Midas Jar’.

‘Titan’ a beautiful piece by Bruno Romanelli

Based at the Ruskin Glass Centre, an arts facility housed in a transformed glass factory, there were an amazing series of lectures, demonstrations and exhibitions. In particular I enjoyed lectures by Antoine and by American artist, Dick Marquis and by Lani McGregor who who talked about the history and development of the Bullseye Glass Factory in Portland Oregan who sponsored my recent Warm Glass Prize. I also enjoyed meeting Jo Newman, who has a studio at the Ruskin Centre, and seeing her subtle beautiful work. I had booked on an architectural glass symposium which was cancelled, so I booked an introduction to glass blowing with Martin Andrews instead.

I love working with hot glass and Martin took me through the basics. I had prepared some moulds and inclusions to work with so we ended up working late one night with Martin and his noble assistant, John, blowing pieces for me in exchange for my help manning the shop during the day! It was great to get to know Martin, and to have an insight into how to improve my mould making techniques for working with hot glass, hopefully this is the start of future collaborations!

I also had some ideas I wanted to try out about drawing with hot glass on paper, and I met KT Yun at the festival who has developed the Minimelt, a portable furnace. KT was happy to allow me to experiment with glass and paper and to begin to explore some new possibilities.

 

There were a number of evening events as part of the festival. The most spectacular was Torcher Tailor, orchestrated by Carrie Fertig, a glass friend from Edinburgh, and consisted of a glass wedding dress being fabricated on stage using torches and flameworked glass. The dress was made onto Jessica Mann, a young sculptor wearing a spun glass wig. At the end the audience was invited to come and put a rose or a thistle into one of the small glass vases which made up the skirt of the dress.

One of the most interesting and unexpected things for me to come out of being at the festival was to begin to get a feel for the origins of British Glass making as an industrial process in the Midlands 300 years ago. I went along to an opening at Dial Glass Works, home of Plowden and Thompson glass makers and discovered a factory built in 1788 and remaining very much unchanged since.

Before I left Stourbridge, I went back to Dial Glass Works and photographed and drew people working in the factory. It was incredible to be in this historic building which is still very much a functioning factory and to watch highly skilled craftsmen pulling 30 foot long perfectly straight and true glass rods for use in industry.

All in all I have had a great time and am very grateful to the Arts Council of Wales for sponsoring my attendance at the festival in the form of a training bursary.

Now I am back in Pembrokeshire and settling in to my studio and enjoying the autumnal shift in weather. I am looking forward to processing the incredible summer of glass I have had.

 

Glass and slate

Its June in the quarry, and the period of my Welsh Arts Council research grant is coming to an end. I have been burning the kiln at both ends to finish some cast glass pieces and consolidate my research, and put all the oral history tapes, sketches and photographs in some kind of order. Sarah Harman is working on a wonderful suite of songs using some of the threads and stories we have uncovered.

I am still unearthing (sometimes literally!) the secrets of this place, and am awash with ideas and sculptural possibilities. It is a kind of cultural archaeology, and I love that. This research is a real gathering, and is giving me the opportunity to explore lots of ideas and try things out.

I have also been to the studio of Darren Yeadon, a stone sculptor who lives in Goodwick. Darren has been pondering the possibility of putting some glass into his work,and has just completed a stone sculpture of a fragment window, so in some ways our work has been following similar paths. When I got in touch with him to ask if he could cut some slate for me, he was glad to oblige and we have agreed to do a skills exchange, and who knows, maybe we will even collaborate on making work some day.

I also heard this week that the Welsh Arts Council have awarded me a training bursary to cover my travel expenses to Northlands Glass Centre and to pay for me to attend the Glass Biennale in Stourbridge and a masterclass at the International Festival of Glass in the Midlands with pâte de verre master Antoine Leperlier. I am very grateful for all this support – it is going to be a very exciting and busy summer!

 

Settling back into Pembrokeshire

I have been busy all week with the interpretation for the Conwy Castle windows, so yesterday I took a break and we went over to Skomer to enjoy the bluebells at their best. We had the afternoon on the island before Den’s guided boat trip in the evening, so we got to see all the old favourites and reconnect with the place.

The short eared owls were flying in North Valley, the guillemots and razorbills were doing their thing on the cliff edges and the puffins were starting to bring sand eels in to feed the first chicks. At the latest count there are something like 11,400 puffins nesting on the island! So, it is a busy place, but if you time it right you can get around without bumping into too many people, and the bluebells, which are very late this year, are in full bloom and creating spectacular carpets all over the island.

The weather was fantastic and the evening boat trip was wonderful, we saw a few porpoise, gannets, puffins and other auks. The views of the island were breathtaking and the reflected colours in the water were amazing.

The trip was capped off by being surrounded by a raft of shearwaters as they swooped and glided over the water at sunset.

This morning I went on a (Welsh language) guided walk across the Preseli’s to remember those who protected this landscape from being requisitioned by the M.O.D. during the Second World War. The guide was Geraint Harries, a local National Park Warden who explained  about the wildlife of the place and Hefin Wyn, a local author and historian who has written extensively about the history of the area and was able to tell us more about the history of the landscape.

Unfortunately I couldn’t do the whole walk, but cut back through Rosebush with Sarah Harman so that we could discuss our on-going project research into the human shaping of the landscape around the quarry. I am looking forward to spending more time in the studio in June finishing some pieces that are in progress on this, and Sarah is well underway with writing a suite of songs. It is good to catch up and fill each other in on our progress. This is part of a research and development project I am undertaking with the support of The Arts Council of Wales.

 

Tenby Tiger

Had a fantastic evening swim on Tenby South Beach with a friend after a day in the studio (not nearly as cold as I expected, and really refreshing!), and then we came across this valiant Scarlet Tiger Moth on the sand…such exquisite colours showing petrol greens and emeralds over black and then a shock of poppy red petticoats….perfect end to my day.

 

Filming for S4C

I spent the afternoon yesterday filming an interview in my studio for S4C’s Llwybyr Arfordir Sir Benfro series to be screened (in Welsh with sub-titles) this autumn. It was great to have the chance to chat with the interviewer, Damian Walford Davies, (a poet and writer based in Aberystwyth), who has a lot of similar interests in his work…islands, maps, archaeology, aerial perspectives, Bardsey……it was fantastic to share ideas and talk over ideas for our work – who knows where these conversations might lead?!

Special thanks to Ruby for helping me in preparing my Welsh!

 

Oriel y Shed Exhibition Opening!

I presented my week’s work on Skomer to all the inhabitants and occupants of Skomer island on Thursday evening in a show in my temporary studio space (better known as the Volunteer’s Lounge and Sue`s Potting Shed!) on the island. Everyone came and the opening was probably the best attended, noisiest and most friendly I have ever had!

Thanks to Chris and Sue for letting me use the space, to Mary Jo for the delightful canapes, and to everyone who came along and made the event a success.

Here is a selection of the work on show:

 

Island Days

I walked and painted from dawn this morning until the moon rose tonight- it is so good to have a few days alone to indulge myself away from the usual domestic/gallery routine.

There are no boats this week so the island is quiet and I can find plenty of places to sit and take in the atmosphere of the place. I am thinking a lot about the human shaping of this landscape, it has been farmed for thousands of years and the remains of iron age field boundaries and dams are clearly visible through the bracken.

This is something that I find increasingly interesting and is an aspect of landscape which I am hoping to explore in my work – watch this space!

There is a man staying on the island this week who came here in 1947 to ring birds when Ronald Lockley was on Skomer. He is 89 now and has always wanted to come back, you meet some interesting characters here.

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Skomer Studio

It’s great to be back here and to know I have the week ahead of me to absorb the colour and inspiration of Skomer once again.

I have set up my studio and begun to get down to it. I have been coming here for 18 years and it is so amazing to be back, always something new amongst the familiar, and always changing light and colour….I love the place!

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