The time for the Cambridge Glass Fair is fast coming. Being the first show for a very long time, I am spending hours rehearsing ... sorting out glass shelving, lighting, display etc. Amazing how much there is to do as prep, apart from making the work! But its coming along.

I am looking forward to feedback and starting to gather collectors. This will be a good practice for the London show, in June.

This glass has gold applied to the outer surface of the glass. It was applied in sheets, with gelatine as glue, then engraved to make the pattern. The gold is bonded to the glass by heating the object till softening point and then annealing it.

Photo credits

photos: all are taken by Ester Segarra.

The sizes are: taller one with silver snail, 24 cm high x 9cm diameter. Small blue/silver about 15 cm high.

Images on the blog

Here are blown glass vessels based on 16th century Humpen. These were ceremonial glasses made in central Europe for around 150-200 years. Often they had a trail or painted divisions for a drinking game. You had to drink down to the first trail in one gulp and if you failed, you had to drink to the next. Other times the glasses were painted with coats of arms or the double headed eagle of the Hapsburg Empire. I took the idea of the divisions to make the breaks necessary in the glass in order to get inside and do the gilding and painting. I am experimenting with different ways of using the divisions: making them a feature or ignoring them, as with these ones. Other pictures on the site are of blown bubbles which I have cut horizontally to allow access. Gilding is applied also to the outer surface and fired on. This way I can make layers and create depth, using the thickness of the glass. The thickness of the glass, as with the heavy red glass shown earlier, has an important part to play with decoration applied front and back.
If you are a reader and find this of interest, do let me know and I can write more.

Feb update

I have just been in New York, teaching a class at Corning followed by 4 days' jaunt in NY. There, with an old friend, we walked our legs off looking at galleries and eating. I still managed to come back fat, I don't know why.

Plans are afoot to teach a 2-week class there again in summer, 2011, with my friend Rene Culler. www.reneculler.com. Our skills and experience overlap well; it should be a rich mix.

So, my immediate plans are this:

Sunday February 28, I will be exhibiting my glass for the first time at The Cambridge Glass Fair Chilford Hall, Linton CB21 4LE. www.cambridgeglassfair.com

Then, there will be the first London day long class this year in Chelsea on March 13. For more information please email: info@houseofmirrors.co.uk

I will update again with further news. Meanwhile I have added some more pics. Please sign up when you feel like it so it looks like someone is reading this. Though I don't mind mumbling to myself.