European Glass 1

With my family living overseas, it's only natural that we've visited Europe regularly and especially since I started my glass studies, I've been making an effort to visit as much glass events, galleries and studio's as possible, when I'm there.

When we were there a few years ago, we took our children to Venice. For us (hubby and I) it was like coming full circle, as we had been here on our honeymoon. We have a small glass piece of a man/woman embrace (about 20cm high) that we bought from the glass blowers on Murano.

Murano glass embrace.

It was my (our) first experience of a hot shop. Looking back after all these years , the work that those glass blowers do is far removed from the glitz and glam of renowned glass artists.

The number of "workhorses" far outweighs the number of famous glass maestro's like the Lino Tagliapietra's of this world, who wows audiences around the world with his virtusos technique and understanding of the traditional Venetian glassblowing techniques. He has been a king pin in a new renaissance in glassblowing and contemporary studio glassmaking and has been pivotal in helping to raise the international standards of glass craftsmanship.

For the normal workers,glass blowing on a popular tourist island like Murano it's a cut throat business. There are many hot shops and glass studios on the island and they all vie for business: the more people visit YOUR hotshop for a demonstration, the more people will possibly buy YOUR souvenirs. And there are just so many hot shops one will visit ! These people work for hard earned bread and butter and have to turn out the same little souvenirs over and over again. The Tourist industry is a great job creator.

While we were there with the family, we wanted a souvenire just like any other tourist, but couldn't afford something really spectacular. So eventually we decided on one of the typical tourist souvenirs that are made with the millions in Venice: the Murano Glass Sweets. We all chose a personal favourite and they're a reminder of a family holiday with a difference.

Glass maniac

Since doing my B Tech degree at the NMMU (actually from before that time) I was labelled (by my family members!) maniac. I took it in my stride because if maniac means an unstoppable fascination with the subject, then that's all right with me.

In the course of the past 5 years I have bought a small library of books regarding various specific hot and cold glass techniques, but I also bought books that were great for inspiration regarding design ideas: form, colour, shape ... .

I eventually also subscribed to various top glass magazines: Neues Glass, Fjoezz (which used to be "this side up"), Glashaus and Glass Art (which has stained glass aspects over and above the kiln working glass techniques.) Some magazines focus on the artists, feature interviews and description of their work, other magazine add articles and photo instructions about techniques. Only one would not be enough to grasp the great possibilities of working with glass, as many glass artists combine techniques to bring out various characteristics of the glass.

Even though I'm not full time busy with my glass (due to circumstances), I still get a thrill every time I grab a book and I can't wait for every new edition of my subscriptions.