in good company

In early 2012 I held an exhibition with my mate Dani. We make marbles together and put up a pretty rockin show of about 300 marbles at a hip gallery called Paper String Plastic. This is a small portion of the show which remained up during adelaide fringe 2012.

check out marble merchants blog to see more marbles.

Dani also makes some pretty neat items.

She made this rainbow diamond the other day. It'll get surfaced with flat facets to resemble a jumbo diamond.  They're real sharp- go find out..Danielle Rickaby

Another Artist I work with constantly is Mandi King.

These are some 'bubbleblocks' and a bunch of cylindrical stripy vases called 'Magna'

Shes got a unique approach, I'm a fan..

 Its good to be in cahoots with other makers and to be involved in their work as well as my own.

Even when I haven't got much to say about my own stuff,  theres still lots of interesting objects to admire and share around..

drunking in style

'Dolces' silver tumblers

Blingin' cups for an excellent get drunk experience.

I like me some wines or ciders in the round cup and a tall G n T in the other. 

points for colour

Just propped this up today at Gallery on Waymouth in Adelaide. 'Potions' 

                                              Same anlge, good crop, I snapped.
                                            gem tones muted against clear distortion.
                  If you are a mad scientist with crazy secret potions and need containers for said potions,.
                                                              ....these are them.

new colour shipment arrived the other day. 

its fun and inspiring to look at.

Free styled within 4mm,....these are Machine Made By Hand.

archives

 Here's some portfolio shots from the last few years.

Tangent bottle (detail) 2010 

'Comet' 2012

                                                                         'Rare Fruit' 2006

                                      

'Shady Characters' 2008

And a few studio snaps too!

making marbles for Canadream commission.

working on murrine techniques at Canberra Glassworks

doin demos of weird stuff for students at uniSA

Nature wins for best design

white edition Feel Good Bowls.

 all colours welcome on the lip.

feelin pretty good.

my favourite designer, nature, with a bangin rendition of 'tree'

.......sick.

new ARt acquisition. 

Dale Roberts being featured on our polka dot table.

freestylin

Freestyle saw blade is my favourite sketching method.

This is another mock up for the series called 'Logos'.... It will be a finished thing soon.

 More bits for Mark Douglass lighting

Impact!

New favourite thing i ever done did, so far.

 the 'Comet' night lamp.

Still some technical tinkering to do but aesthetically,

they've hit the mark.

always with the makin' stuff

The 'Comet' table lamp design requires some wood work, which is excellent fun. I've found myself freestylin on a bandsaw and a belt sander making the bases for the lamps which loosely mirror the shadow of the glass. Above depicts the chiseling of channels for the passage of light through the thing.  

Here is a few together in the cold shop getting roughed into shape. The red one in front had the raddest colour combination of apricot over vermillion. Unfortunately, it got dead. It cracked somehow during sandblasting. Them's the breaks.

I do demonstrations at uniSA most mondays for a group of 3rd year students. Here is last weeks demo.

Red and black never looses.

all in the details

Axis Bowl

 White Eclipse collection

straight studio snaps

In hindsight, I realise I've been goin pretty alright this year. These are random contents from my iphones' pictoral diary; Miscellaneous stuff that did actually happen. 

I've been making some light shade fittings for a melbourne designer named Mark Douglas. It's been pretty straight forward so far but soon we'll be making some more complex designs like giant things that stack, giant 2 tone lamps and giant crazy tree trunk lookin things... should be fun.

 

This white goblet turned out tight and ended up in a group of vessels that are up in a jazzy Adelaide eatery called the Gallery on Waymouth.  

An excellent benefit of creating and selling in the same venue is being able to make a thing on Wednesday and have it presented for sale by Friday. Thanks Jam Factory )

glass candy at bench 3

making comets

 I've been thinking about lamps a lot lately. Not desk lamps necessarily but sculptural objects that catch sunlight by day and illuminate by night.

I like the idea of a comet touching down or colliding on an angle, its an interesting visual to me. These crystalline forms have a sort of downward motion which mirrors that idea.





I like posting quick studio shots of my work because it describes the way I view the work. On shelves, inbetween processes, thats when some of the best thinkin gets done. This ruby coloured one isn't finished but i just had to sandblast it and stick some light in there to see what happened. It's raw moments and effects like these that are the most exciting parts of art making.

This is the interior of the blue comet.

 

fresh out tha box

These are some test things I made last week with some Jam crew. I want to make a bunch of clear forms and make a 'logo' with them but this method proved a bit tricky. I didn't really have control of them, and the effect i'm after just wasn't getting highlighted. I'll have another crack at it tomorrow but i'll simplify a bit and concentrate on singular forms instead of trying create an accurate set, just yet.

This is a bit hasty, I should have a super pro image coming soon, but I wanted to post this other new thing. The Spectrum Paperweight. I think.

Honestly, I cant decide on a title. 

What do you think? 

logos

This type of drawing has been with me for ages. I think they are derived from my early interest in graffiti. As a teen I was fixated on lettering. Graffiti artists could add so much personal jive to their letter-types; creating phrases so complex even illegible at times. Works of graffiti were 'logos' for a personal brand of lettering. I was all about it.
 I see these drawings as an extension of that process. Lately, I've been simplifying my letters, and trying to improve my scribble technique.

helping friends in shiny new places. +drawing more shapes

 I've had the chance to work with number of new artists lately. Its been rockin. In the last two months I've been to Sydney to work with Ben Edols, and Melbourne to work with a fellow named Mark Douglass. They were both short stays but wicked experiences regardless. I've been working with lots of artists in Adelaide too! Amanda Dziedzic,  Tom Moore, Nick Mount and I've had my first gaffer experience creating forms for my good friend Mandi King. Thanks Mando!

These cups were made while I was in Sydney with Ben and Kathy.

                                                     

Here are some other jazzy objects that just happened to be in the studio.

Patrick Primeau is another Canadian friend whose made it to Adelaide for a while. This is one of his works being made at UniSA hot shop. He and his wife, Caroline Oullette, run Welmo studio in Montreal.

I've been running a  sketch book workshop with the current associates at the Jam glass studio. Basically we are working together to achieve better habits around drawing and visualisation. I have give them some endurance drawing challenges and we have been working in the shop one on one as well; working through drawn ideas and getting them translated into glass.

 This is a little study from my sketch book. I'm trying to execute more ideas straight from the scribbles. Sometimes they are the good ones.

1 years worth

Here are some long overdue updates from my past year of making.

In August 2011 I travelled to Canberra to complete a 6 week residency at the Canberra Glassworks.

I did heaps of tests, concentrating on murrine, cold assembly (glueing), and coldworking in general. 

I also couldn't help myself from building some jazzy trios, as I often do. These teal forms were a hit.

I've been lucky enough to land a couple of commissions recently as well. These stemless wine tumblers have silver leaf scattered through the base. I made 40 all up.

Around about the same time I made a set of 8 more traditional looking goblets. Only 7 here as it took a few takes to get 8 real good ones,

Then just last month I finished a piece that is the largest object I've ever made. 'Cherry bomb' is 107cm  and though this pic doesn't show it, the piece has thin opaque red stringers running vertically up the cherry red form. It creates a super subtle red on red effect, sweet.

And, somehow,  I managed to put together another solo show in a neat little gallery at Urban Cow Studio in downtown Adelaide.  I titled it 'Future Antiques'  The work in the show was quite a literal splice of classicism with some sort of futuristic temperament. Renaissance still life tendencies combined with simplified, graphic versions of well known vessel ware.

The 'Future Antiques' idea also suggests that glass is a material with longevity and that consequently, contemporary glass objects will eventually become 'antiques' simply by the function of time. 

Those were the major happenings since I last posted, far too long ago.

I've been feeling inspired and optimistic lately and am really fascinated by the internet and the awesome power it has to spread ideas. I'm setting goals to take advantage of the beast, posting more, face tweet following and the like. So if you catch this blog and like the shiny things, share it around and leave us some feedback soIi always have something to improve on. thanks