GLASS ART COMES TO FRANKLIN
In 2014, I commenced a journey to return to my glass casting love, so I decided to set up a job for myself doing what I loved. I embarked on a journey of providing and offering cast glass workshops in farm shed on the property where I live. The objective of the workshops was for income and for producing some new works in casting, as I had been away from the art of glass making for over five years and suffered mental illness along the way. It wasn't until I came to live where I am now, that I decided it was time to give something back to the community I'd come to love and made lots of friends out of. That was the glass community and the Glass Artist Society of NZ. With the workshops, I intended to bring an awareness of glass as a medium for expression to the Franklin region, being the only 'established' glass artist in the area, it was a time to start to educate people on what cast glass is or isn't and I would do it justice by teaching the basics of lost wax casting, a technique brought to us by Anne Robinson, the doyen of cast glass in NZ. We are blessed that Anne shared this information with us in order to provide information about the techniques, which we could all use when teaching or educating others. The description was for us to use. My humble gratitude to Anne for the opportunity and for the notes.
From November 2013, I commenced a campaign and had a large spread in the local newspaper about offering these workshops. With dates and schedules set, In the first few days of the newspaper article being released, I was uninvited with registrations for the workshops. In those days, the studio had one work bench so I could only fit three participants per workshop! I had to move registrants to other scheduled workshops, but this created a wee buzz in my wee community. It was an exciting time to be educating others about glass and an opportunity to share whatever knowledge I had to others.
So, to cut a long story short, my objective has come to reality. This year, The Franklin Arts Festival (the largest art festival in Auckland) decided to have a glass section with the same prizes as other categories and this, to my ears, was the best news ever! I couldn't have been more excited. There were several reasons for the Festival Committee to make this decision, but be that as it may, it meant that my objective to bring glass to the region has finally come.
One of the NZ Society of Artists in Glass' objective is to promote glass as an art form within NZ and overseas so I felt I was meeting that objective as well, through sharing my knowledge in workshops.
This year, in the Steel Gallery at the Franklin Arts Festival, there is a glass section with over 50 individual pieces of work on display. I curated the show jointly with glass artists Sofia Athens and Jenny McLeod, both good friends and glass colleagues. When the glass section was announced, I jumped in and volunteer to accept all the entries and be the point of contact for the Festival Committee, as they need all the help they can get.
A festival of this nature is a big project every year with many volunteers there to assist and with glass, it has to be handled slightly differently to other media, as there are thousands of paintings, photo, ceramics, textiles etc. that has to be installed - no mean feat at all, for those of you who have been there and done that, will understand.
In order for the glass section to have the prizes as the other categories, there needed to be at least 20 pieces of glass work exhibited, or the Festival would have taken away the prizes. Well, this wasn't going to happen in my lifetime. So, with my contacts within the glass community, I face booked the notice, I asked people to put in entries by 31 July and I hoped that this initiative would be supported. A couple of weeks out of the festival, the Secretary of the Committee emailed me to advise they had 52 entries of glass! WOOO. That really excited me so much.
So it's all happening and the glass is installed in the Steel Gallery at the Franklin Arts Centre in Pukekohe, 12 Massey Avenue.
On the 9th of September I am giving a floor talk in the gallery and discussing all the various genres of glass works on display and being exhibited and to educate the public about glass and the differences in applications and I hope I can do that justice.
The exhibition runs from 2-10 September 2017. The floor talk will commence on the 9th at 11am until 12pm so all welcome and it is free.
I've kind of wrapped up four years in a few paragraphs but really just wanted to tell all how exciting it is for me and for glass to be in this small community in which I work, live and play.
