Sunday, August 31, 2014

Day #4 & 5

Getting into the swing of projects now!

Jeffery is making some chain and eyelets with the help of Jim who learnt THE method from Scott Chaseling



This is Jeff doing a mock installation in one of the coves near town.

Patty is playing with dying corals and sponges she found on the beach. I think these will end up being part of a sort of crazy wearable coral man-suit.


Dr. Patty and the Expandable Foam Experiments


Audrey is playing with LOTS of techniques, including sand casting and copper inclusions. At the moment she's replicating textures of local stone, seaweed and sea pebbles.


Patty, the keen volunteer on sand-brushing duty

 
Jim and Petr, puntying up one of Audrey's sand cast glasseaweeds

Petr Stranicky, our marvelous Czech teacher, is playing with something here, but he's not really telling us too much about it so far. (I'm not sure if that's because he doesn't want to reveal his genius ideas too soon or because he doesn't know what he's doing :P)
Supposedly the squashed balloons idea here was inspired by my squished glass blobs!


My tests with stones are all coming out quite well!



I'm churning through quite a bit of stone, so I've been running around town trying to find bits that won't be missed.
Enlisting some brawn


My back won't thank me by the end of this project. Though my osteopath might, after I've paid for his next holiday...

So, for the time being, I'm charging ahead with stone and glass sandwiches.



(This particular piece was quite stressful because there was quite a lot of little spiders and things living in the lichen and I couldn't domestically relocate all of them before we poured the glass in. There was a bit of a massacre which is still weighing heavy on me)

Back too it tomorrow. I'd like to produce enough units to start playing with some installations.

Well, goodnight Australia! May your backs all be in good shape and may your spiders live in peace!

Friday, August 29, 2014

Day #3

Today we spent the morning on a little field trip North of Lybster in the FunBus.


We spent a good few hours playing around the BEAUTIFUL ruined Castle Sinclair Girnigoe and the beaches near by...


The castle was built with local stone, and you can sort of see in this image how the laid stone almost blends into the natural rock. Stunning!!



...and at the Whaligoe steps.

These steps were used (mostly by MACHINE women) to haul up baskets of herring from the small fishing harbor below.

Taking some (waterlogged) souvenirs home

In the afternoon we spent a little time in the hotshop mucking around with some ideas. It was SO nice to get playing with some hot glass!
The hotshop here is pretty beautiful. Its got the most stunning set of tools I've ever seen. (Which either shows my glassy ignorance or Northland's excellence. I suspect the latter)



My dad told me I wasn't to go falling in love with a UK bloke and never coming home again. If that WERE to happen, this would be the man - master of glass blowing, connoisseur of all things fermented and a complete a bundle of laughs: our wonderful gaffer, Mr Jimmy Maskrey.


A cute little row of Jim's practice goblets

Here's a few of the tests that Jim helped me play about with. I'm trying to work out how to get all the lovely stone into my glass work, and this is how I'm starting out :)





The first couple of days worth of classes were been spent trotting about the town and the landscape rooting ourselves in our surroundings.

Day #1 we had GLORIOUS weather, so we strolled around the coastline drawing and taking photos and soaking up the highlands.



The little harbor at the end of Lybster




I've been going MENTAL over all the lichen and dry stone walls. They'll possibly work their way into my project somehow..


Yesterday the fog rolled in, so we did a lot of drawing and developing of ideas inside the studio.







Wednesday, August 27, 2014

First Morning in Lybster

Jet lag will have its way.
Here's some happy snaps of my first walk through Lybster at 6:30 this morning.
The town is gorgeous. You can walk the whole length of it in half an hour at a leisurely stroll.

(that red door in the background is the Northlands studio)





Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Well here we are!
You find me sitting in my hotel room in Manchester after 22 hours of flying, waiting for the last little leg of the journey up to Northlands. 

This was the last bit of Aussie sunshine I enjoyed on the way to the airport:


and the last decent coffee that I expect for the next couple of months!

 
I've prepared myself for the UK drizzle (which at least lends itself beautifully to glass blowing!) and for replacing my thrice-daily lattes with copious amounts of english breakfast.


I was exceptionally proud of how lightly I packed, so I thought I'd throw the photographic proof up so you can all be proud of me as well!


Despite travel weariness, I'm getting very pumped up for Northlands which kicks off tomorrow morning! I think I'm most excited about getting to live, eat and work with a tight little community of glassies for a solid month. Typically before a class or semester or project starts, I go through a slight panicky phase where I believe that I've already dried up my allotment of creativity and that I've got nothing left in me to produce :P Luckily this weird fear always disappears as soon as I get into the studio and start throwing ideas around with other makers. And I'm keen to see what a full month in a dynamic and imaginitive environment will produce in our class!

I'm REALLY looking forward getting into it tomorrow and having more exciting news to share than my luggage situation.
Keep well, Australia!