Glasrijk Tubbergen

Profile by Linda Norris

This year I was invited to show my work at the oldest glass festival in Holland, which is held in Tubbergen, Eastern Netherlands. Thanks to support from the Glasrijk Festival organisers and a grant from Wales Arts International, I am attending and showing my work alongside artists working in glass from across Europe in a major show on the theme of Mirror, Mirror…which takes over the whole town for 6 days.

The work I am showing features 120 mirrors in the shape of iPhones, each of which carries the image of someone who is my Friend on Facebook. Each of the ‘phones’ is connected by a line to everyone who is connected to that person on Facebook.

 

Installation by Linda Anneveld

Work by Ioana Stelea from Romania

Installation in the Protestant Church by Zwier Cornellisen

Windows reflected in the work of André van Lier

By Karen Browning

The photos above show just a small selection of the work on view. As well as seeing lots of new glass work I am also meeting many artists and running a workshop for the public.

Continuing my portraiture theme, for the workshop I have prepared a range of portraits which the participants will be able to stick on to glass and then colour using vinyl, thereby creating instant “stained glass”.

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Emerging from 13th Century!

A few weeks back, Rachel Phillips and I installed our five stained glass windows in Beaumaris Castle on Anglesey. The castle was built in the late 1200’s by Edward 1st, and our work celebrates the design and the masons who built it, while referencing manuscripts pertaining to the use, ownership and state of the castle through the centuries.

We have been living and breathing this work for the past 8 months, and are delighted to see it in situ, casting light and colour back into the building.

I have also been making some glass squares for Strata Florida Abbey in Mid Wales. These pieces have been incorporated into a metal gate and were commissioned by sculptor, Rubin Eynon. They are based on encaustic tiles found at the abbey and also contain fragments of manuscripts written by the Welsh poet, Gwilym ap Dafydd and other scribes who wrote at the abbey.

In other news, I have had a piece accepted for the British Glass Biennale, which takes place in Stourbridge in August. This piece is about global interconnectivity on social media and will be an installations of ‘iPhones’, which I am making from mirror, each of which feature the silhouette portrait of one of my Friends on Facebook. Anyone who is my Friend on Facebook can take part and I want to feature as many people as possible. All you have to do is send me a photo of yourself in profile, head and shoulders, taken against a light background, and I will do the rest!

Now I am taking a well deserved break in preparation for all my new projects!

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

Calligraphy on Glass

This week we had a visit from Kathryn Campbell, an artist based in Carmarthenshire who trained as a calligrapher. We have been searching for a calligrapher who can work with us to incorporate the beautiful couplets written by Damian Walford Davies in the windows. Kathryn is an artist I have known about for a while but had no idea she was a talented calligrapher, and, what’s more she is excited about our work and able to fit in to our tight deadline! Incorporating the poems in the windows needs careful thought and we have gone through a number of options and approaches, finally we decided we need to commission a calligrapher in order to do the work, and the poems, justice.

The painting is coming along well, we need to get all the glass painted and delivered to Swansea in a fortnight’s time for leading in order to comply with our installation date of March 8th.

I took a day in the week to work with Sarah Harman on our Rosebush Quarry project “Canu’r Oer Wynt”. This is a project I began in the autumn supported by a research and development grant from Arts Council Wales. I have been researching in archives, interviewing local people and experimenting with some glass ideas in my kiln, but since November the project has taken a back seat because of the Conwy commission. Sarah is a singer/songwriter and talented choir leader who is planning to write a suit of songs based on the history of the quarry, together we interviewed local people who remember the railway in Rosebush when it was operational, Peter Claughton, an industrial archaeologist and Geraint Harries, a friend and local man who works for The Pembrokeshire National Park Authority. We recorded the interviews to form the basis of our research for our project and discussed our ideas and plans. It was good to get back into this project.

Recording an interview with Peter Claughton in Rosebush Quarry.

Getting down to it…

The gallery has been converted back into a stained glass workshop and the wonderful Carwyn has constructed fantastic easel light boxes to enable us to work on all three panels together. We have been ailing with seasonal bugs but have been enjoying painting up some glass and preparing pieces for sand blasting. It is great to have the templates and cut lines up in the studio and to actually begin to assess light and colour.

I went to a fantastic gig at Cuffern Manor this week, Julie Murphy and Ceri Owen Jones performed new pieces from their upcoming album, ably supported by Fiddlebox. Julie’s songs are tender and poignant and their collaboration embodies the best of traditional and contemporary work, poetry and music, and, amazingly, Ceri played a piece from the medieval ap Huw manuscript – one of the manuscript sources I have been consulting for my windows project…synchronicity at its best!…dreaming of a harp in the chapel..!

Full steam ahead!

Our designs for the windows for Conwy Castle have been approved so we can start painting the glass this week! This is very exciting, now we can get down to some painting and working with the glass – can’t wait!

Drawing it all together…

Rachel and I are busy preparing designs for the Conwy windows this week. We’ve taken over the gallery to draw up full size cartoons, it’s great to see it coming together.

Also I have launched my Winter Studio Sale with 50 unframed sketches and studies for sale online at prices from £45, see examples below:

“A (wo)man travels the world in search of what (s)he needs and returns home to find it” – George Moore

'Her House Is Air', cast, blown and engraved Bullseye Glass and feather.

This is the final piece I made at Michael Roger’s Masterclass. The experience at Northlands was very intense, living, breathing, eating, drinking and working with a great bunch of artists, being away from domestic and family commitments and being able to live steeped in glass for two weeks has given a huge boost to my work.

My class at Northlands.

Cast glass peregrine skull.

It takes a while to arrive back home, to settle in to the studio here, to walk alone in this landscape, to adjust to the teen scene that is part of my life, and to begin to unpack some of the things I have learned at Northlands.

I return with new resolve to be focussed on my Rosebush project and have begun to make a moulds for a casting idea I have for that. Also I have been shortlisted for a commission at Conwy Castle, so I have a trip to North Wales next week to research for that. The gallery is in a quiet period just now, we are in the last few weeks of regular opening hours and from October are open by appointment.

Cardigan treasure…

I managed to sell enough work to go on my Northlands Masterclass! Thanks to those who took advantage of my discount offer and supported me by buying some work.

Yesterday I had a crises of confidence about going when I discovered that I will be working alongside some of the most talented glass artists around. I had a very reassuring email from Michael Rogers, the tutor, and today I feel only excited and full of anticipation about working with people who are so engaged with their practice.

Michael has asked all participants to bring with them a small suitcase of inspirational material to work with and I spent the day in the junk shops of Cardigan selecting priceless objects of Welshness to take with me to Caithness.

Cardigan proved a great place to start my search, it is full of cheap tourist places and charity shops (the most disorganised and grubby ones are best for this kind of thing) and I set myself the target of not spending more than £2 on an object. Michael has given me licence to hang out in the most fascinating emporia known to man and a budget is a necessary constraint if my studio is not to become even more of a junk store!

I love the serendipity of what you find in these places and of the co-incidences and connections you discover along the way. My suitcase is going to need some heavy editing, and that is a good process for me to apply to my ideas in general. Sometimes I feel that I have too many ideas and can not find the space to explore any of them deeply enough, archiving them and putting them in boxesmay just help with that, enable a lot of things to coexist without becoming overwhelming – why did n`t I think of this before?!

I had lunch in Y Pantri, a lovely local cafe, strictly tea and toasted sandwiches, not a tapas in sight! Quite a change from Narberth! So a successful days hunting and I topped it off with a visit to see the Cardigan Cardigan, an enormous (5m x 2.5m) cardigan knitted by local people last year to celebrate 900 years of the towns heritage. Inspired by the work of assistant designer, Susan McComb, the work is mostly in cable stitch and was knitted by 300 people of all ages and abilities, who met and knitted together, or in their own homes,  over 9 months. A wonderful example of a truly inclusive community art project.

Art walking in the footsteps of science…

My time on Skokholm Island was fantastic! I walked those 242 acres for a week and really began to absorb the feel of the island. Swimming with seals and puffins in South Haven was a highlight, as was lying beneath the stars at the lighthouse watching Storm Petrels returning to their nests. There were lots of wonderful moments, seeing Burnet Moths mating, coming across 50 stranded Compass Jellyfish that had lost their way in North Haven, painting a Garden Tiger Moth….
It is always easier to work when I am alone and away from the distractions of home life. The islands give me the space to contemplate and decide where I want to go next with my work. There is a lot to think about just now – glass and paint and so many themes bubbling up…

All in all it has been a time of collecting for me, collecting material (sand, earth, seaweed, bones) and inspiration, and collecting my thoughts.

Sifting sandstone I collected to use in my work.

This has a parallel in the scientific work that goes on on the islands, the monitoring, mapping and collecting of data and material and the documenting of conditions and movements and migrations, these things have been faithfully recorded here since 1927 when Ronald Lockley, naturalist, farmer and writer extraordinaire, took on the lease of the island. The scientific approach mirrors what I am doing in my sketchbooks and experiments with glass, the application and attention to detail of these scientists is inspirational in itself!!

A page from my glass notebook.

All in all it was an inspirational week and has given me much food for thought (and a studio full of detritus!). I will definitely come back next year and hope to work on a piece of work for the island, possibly a window for Lockley’s restored cottage.

Here are some details of island life….

Jerry shows a shearwater chick

Making plaster casts.

Island Studio.

Monitoring vegetation using transects.

Numbered Storm Petrel Burrow.

Stranded Compass Jellyfish.

Blue Pimpernel

Rocks Study.