


Trying to be a glass artist
All the WAES groups went to visit the glass installation by Thomas Heatherwick at the Wellcome Trust. These are my pictures seen from level 3 and level 7 (the top) of the the building. It's an amazing achievement, but completely didn't work for me as it's meant to represent the pouring of bleigiessen into water - nothing we have all done over many years has ever looked like this. Also odd not to use lead crystal glass. And what's it really got to do with what the Wellcome represents.
A smashed cube gave rise to these two developments from the original: 'Wear it' (personal dig at the 'Wear it, Flaunt it' exhibition of glass jewellery now showing at the Oxo Tower Gallery), and 'Rocks'. Smashed unworked cube cut from the fritted block. Each of the four sections have been differently cold-worked: a) drill-engraved to emphasise the strata naturally formed by the fritted glass, b) lathe cut to mimic a crystalline structure, c) smoothed and partially polished to make it look like jade, d) as a) and additionally sandblasted. Oil-paints have been rubbed into some abraided areas for extra emphasis.