Cast Glass

Isolation: The Antipodean Reality

Much has been said of the role isolation has played in the development of a pioneering spirit. If we can't buy it, we make it. If we don't know how, we invent it. And that is the way it has been with glass casting in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I began in the early 80's with a vision that the 'lost wax' process, as used for bronze casting, could be modified to fit the fussy dictates of glass. This was the start of a 20 year development, separate from, but parallel with, developments in other countries during the same period. It spawned a movement in casting that was encouraged by the formation of various New Zealand polytechnic glass courses that offered casting options.

Throughout the 90's, the co-operation of glass artists and the sharing of information and problems has been the key to the way in which this new art form has progressed.

New stimulus and influence have flowed in from overseas. Elizabeth McClure came to teach and stayed to live and work. Emma Camden came fresh from a Sunderland Polytechnic Glass Programme. The artist-in-residence programme brought Colin Reid from Britain for a year. Contact with the Australian glass community was established. The formation of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass has fostered contact through workshops and conferences with the international movement. Artists from New Zealand travel overseas to teach, to attend workshops and to take up fellowships and scholarships, and to take part in exhibitions.

In the early 90's our local glass making house 'Gaffer Glass' responded to the casters need for a crystal glass suitable to casting, and the presence of this secondary industry has been critical to the strength of this small energetic cast glass movement that has germinated and is now growing vigorously.

Ann Robinson
Cast Glass Artist
September 1998

All content copyright the artist, and/or Treasury of N.Z. Craft Resources Trust Board. Comments:  feedback@craftinfo.org.nz   Site powered by Virtual Curator, 2004