A New Old Mel Simpson Bottle
I have been delighted recently to acquire one of the oldest pieces by Mel Simpson that I know. The TradeMe vendor said it had been identified by Cordy's in Newmarket as a being piece by Mel. I was intrigued, since it looked more like a Kuepfer bottle, so I wondered how Cordy's knew. The vendor then said that in fact it was signed on the base. So imagine my delight when it arrived in the mail to discover not only Mel's name but the date '77 there too, in upper and lower case script - Mel Simpson '77. After completing his BFA at Elam and MFA in Design at Illinois, Mel studied glass at UCLA in 1975, with help from the (then) QEII Arts Council. He then came back to New Zealand to set up the glass studio at Elam. 1977 must have been almost his first year of production in New Zealand. This tall bottle form was a favourite of Tony Kuepfer's - I have blogged about Tony's bottles previously. The earliest bottles of Tony's I have seen date f rom about this ...