New Gallery in Cardiff

This, and two other pieces, are about to go on show at the Oriel Albany Gallery - a new one for me. I've got nothing at home now, which is the way it should be.

Miratis

Launched today is a new website http://www.miratis.com/ where I am one of 10 launch artists showing the 'finest creations from today’s most talented and talked-about designer-makers' (their words). It's good to have stuff out there on view - and this picture they took showing my work is particularly vibrant.

Next exhibition

I am in this exhibition, starting today and ending on Valentines Day. My offerings are second from the left, second row.

Valentine dishes

A set of pâte de verre valentine dishes for the Heavenly Sent exhibition at The Glass Art Gallery which I am about to deliver. Wastage of 4 (maybe 5) which aren't good enough. Hours spent - and with the gallery mark-up, 20% VAT, general recession, and no private view this time, it hardly seems worth doing. That seems rather a down-beat posting for the first of 2011, but we are all feeling the pinch now. Maybe the thing to do is to make what one wants to make and garner it up for better times ahead.

Art prints

We have just launched our website to sell fine art prints online. It's at www.artglass.print.com
where the first range of limited editions can be seen. We have just a few Artists' Proofs available on enquiry.

Christmas sparkle

Almost all my sparkle plates have gone now. I've just a few left (which I might give away myself) so in the end it was worth making a batch of affordable present-type stock. I did well financially - better than posher exhibitions in fact.

Christmas Fair

Alternative title to this post is 'Where did November go?'. I've been a tardy blogger this year. Not good. Here's a (rather grainy) picture of the lensy sparkle plates I am making at the moment for the Christmas Fair at the ArtWorkers' Guild on 5 December. They'll look nice with delicate biscuits - though I don't recommend heavy handling. Inexpensive for an austerity Christmas.

Shortlisted for ...

We were shortlisted for the Award for Best Use of Visual Art in Health Care - not just my work, but all the hospital art - shame we didn't win. Still, down to the last 4 is not so bad and a good lunch at the old Whitbread stables was had by all. I tried to replicate these icecream baskets later - but they went soggy.

Wallace Day

An interesting seminar day run by the Society for the History of Glass in which I learned of two 1st C AD glassmakers who were women - one who did (?blew) window glass. Another talk concentrated on Roman riddles of a similar period, including this one:

A new commission

Not glass, and not made by me but by Matthew Lane Sanderson. He and I have won a public art pitch to make two pairs of gates for a school in Sheffield. It'll be steel and glass, and is a project I am very excited to be involved in. And the hospital has been shortlisted for an art in hospitals award. Some much-needed positives, at last.

Biennale

Last weekend was the International Festival of Glass and Biennale. I wasn't in the main show but had a double piece (which I forgot to photograph) at the Dial Glassworks gallery. All very jolly meeting up with glass people, but I felt somehow out of it and went home early.

And where did August go?

Coughton Court

One of the windows at a charming Elizabethan manor house near Stratford-upon-Avon where we had just been to see Julius Caesar. Pretty - this sort of thing and a lost art in many ways. Our companions at the play admired my glass jewellery, that I was wearing, and ordered 2 necklaces and 2 pairs of earrings just like that. Shows it pays to advertise your own goods. I was boldly wearing all white that evening.

Leerdam - the Stourbridge of Holland

On our way to Amsterdam, we stopped at the Glass Museum in Leerdam. Though limited in its collection, compared to Broadfield House, the town itself as the Glass Quarter of Holland had so much to teach Stourbridge in terms of creating tourist attractions. I didn't see as much as I wanted, but you could tell from the way it was arranged, street names, restaurant signs, proliferation of galleries, and so on that it was a vibrant town with some manufacture still thriving. Shame the Brits can't recreate that. Pix show some modern whacky wineglasses in nude forms and last century - normally I capture the makers' names but it was hot, the others a bit bored and S wielding the camera.

Where did June go?

And will July be the same? Spikeabell has shamed me into the realisation that since I have stopped being a student, I have been falling behind in my glass logging - or is that 'glogging' (glugging, more like)? She'd spotted my work on the front page of CGS and must have thought, 'So you have been doing stuff.' Yes, I have. But the impetus to photograph and catalogue things has been waning. That said, here's a picture of my stuff in a cabinet in our Open House as part of East Finchley Artists. It's on this weekend, and last. Seven artists are showing in our house. The two platters on the bottom shelf have little lenses and glisten in the sunlight.

Where did May go?

Not a single post last month and yet lots has been happening. I've acquired a drawing by Frank Brangwyn and I'm very pleased to own it. I think I haven't reported that I now edit Glass Circle News - am currently putting together the next edition on which this drawing will feature. Well, why not. It's all a very great deal of work and I think it is permissible to follow personal interests - while also keeping in mind what everybody else collects. The paperweight community is well-represented. Who would have thought the one in the picture below [(c) Bonhams] would sell for over £27,000:

Domaine de la Verriere

Here's a curiosity: a wine label indicative of an industry of glass-bottle-blowers probably in the Ventoux area. Of course, you wouldn't blow a bottle like this, but it's rather quaint all the same. Brought to us in a bottle of rose by friends who'd been overwintering in the Luberon.

As for personal glass-making news; it's all a bit sotto voce at the moment. Gallery sales slow. Nothing cheering happening. And I can't post up the picture of myself with Prince Andrew at the opening of the RNOH because of protocol.

Patrick Reyntiens

A hilarious evening at Glaziers Hall for a fund-raising event to make a documentary on Patrick Reyntiens - here he is demonstrating how he paints on glass. Drunk as a Lord and enjoying every minute of being centre of attention. At 84 or so you had to admire his spirit and energy - though I didn't buy one ofhis pieces as I found them too primitive. Two more measured presentations about working with him and influences from Graham Jones and Danny Lane. Inspiring in many ways.

Wineglasses - technical drawing

I am now the proud owner of this drawing by Frank Brangwyn. It's for glasses made by Whitefriars Glasshouse and I love it. I've got enough wineglasses really so here's a new collecting possibility. I'd like to track down one real glass made from these designs, but it is proving really quite difficult - no one seems to know where to find them. Possibly only one set might have been made and it could be languishing in anyone's collection.

Gallery on Holland's Rhine

This is how they do private views in Holland: a bag of goodies for each of the 7 exhibitors from England (all of whom were there) containing Advokaat, an Edam cheese and chocolate hazelnut Easter eggs. Sales were slow but lots of collectors came and two were very interested in my work and the local paper chose a picture of my blue tippy egg for its review. At the Aventurijn Gallery till 24 April.

Glass Sea

I'm just trying out how to embed a video. Let's see what happens.

Sea of Glass from Sean Vicary on Vimeo.