bodner051

I blogged a few days ago about a piece in my collection by Kharen Hope, and outlined the information I had been able to gather on this artist, previously unknown to me.  Several people I met in Whanganui recently during the Festival of Glass recalled Kharen when she was a student and a staffer in the Glass department at UCOL, and suggested she now lives in Wellington. However, new information has come to light from an unexpected source.  A reader of my blog offered me a piece by Mel Simpson, which will feature in a forthcoming entry.  With the piece he gave me a copy of the catalogue for the 1984 Philips Studio Glass Award.  This is great, since while I had 1985 and 1986, I lacked this first exhibition catalogue. Browsing through, I was surprised and delighted to see number 12, a piece entitled 'Aging', entered by Kharen Hope of Matapouri. The catalogue images are not brilliant, and are all monochrome.  It's not easy to see the detail of the lettering around the...

The Whanganui Glass Festival was a great experience last weekend.  The whole town was buzzing, and there were glass artists, glass enthusiasts and glass events everywhere. Nick Mount blows glass at Chronicle Glass with assistance from Katie Brown Things kicked off with a 'Raise Your Glass' celebration at Chronicle Glass for the sponsors, the retailers who had provided display space, invited guests and members of the Whanganui Glass Group.  Once again glass blowing as performance art was to the fore, with veteran Australian glass master Nick Mount showing his skills, to the accompaniment of a local band, with a very enthusiastic audience.  The pieces Nick made were included in the auction the following night. Karen Ellett holds one of the pieces from her Mainstreet display On Saturday I did a tour of the Mainstreet shop window displays.  This was made all the more enjoyable by the knowledgeable guide we had, glass artist Karen Ellett.  Karen's commentary on the p...

One of the exciting things about collecting New Zealand glass is the opportunity to make a new discovery, new to me at least.  In December 2010 a trader on TradeMe offered this piece with the description 'Karen Hope perfume bottle with removable stopper, signed and dated by artist, app. 8cm high, modern design in shape and size, is in perfect condition white swirl line rotating the glass with a yellow translucent inner set glass.' I knew from my archival research that Karen had exhibited at Masterworks in Auckland in 1990 and at an exhibition in Wellington in 1991.  I had never seen any of her work, and beyond those mentions I knew nothing of Karen Hope, but it looked like a good piece.  I paid the 'Buy Now' price. It is signed 'Karen Hope '90', as well as having a paper label with 'Karen Hope' in ink. The vendor wasn't able to tell me anything, but Google produced a mention in Anthony Genet's (FlameDaisy) biography on the Thornton Gallery we...

The supermarket this morning was full of daffodils.  I began a ritual in 1980, which I think I have repeated each year since.  I had just bought a vase made by Mel Simpson, and it is perfect for tall stemmed flowers like daffodils.  Most of the year it sits with other pieces in my collection, but come spring it is given pride of place with a bunch (or several) of daffodils, jonquils or erlicheers.  It's a fairly simple cylindrical piece, distinguished by an applied band that spirals up to its rim (or down from the rim, I suppose).  It has a lustre, something that Mel used a lot over the years, but it appeals to me because of its simplicity - it doesn't compete with the flowers. This was one of the first pieces of glass I bought after moving to Auckland in 1979 and 'discovering' that New Zealanders made studio glass.  I didn't record where I bought it - from memory it might have been the Whitecliffe gallery that used to be at the top of the Parnell shops for...

http://www.wanganuiglass.co.nz/ For the last six years the glass enthusiasts of Whanganui, one of the main centres for studio glass in New Zealand, have organised a week long festival to showcase the art of studio glass in New Zealand (and Whanganui especially).  I'm intending to join the fun this year, at least for part of the time. All week from 16th to 25th September the town hosts the Main Street Glass Exhibition, with shop windows along the main street featuring displays of contemporary glass. The official opening of the festival 'A Fragile World' with a charity auction of glass pieces is on Saturday 17th at the Sarjeant Gallery.  Tickets for this gala event are available on the Festival website http://www.wanganuiglass.co.nz/fragileworld/ . The Hub at 56 Victoria Avenue is the information centre for the duration of the festival from 10 to 4 daily, and also features an exhibition of works by students of the Wanganui Glass School. On Monday night 19 September master A...

I have recently purchased on New Zealand auction website TradeMe a piece of glass signed graff 73.  It is 14 cms high. I am pretty confident this is not a piece of New Zealand glass, but most likely a work by one of the early studio glass artists in the United States.  The Live Auctioneers website http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/772794 shows a piece of Graff Studio art glass sold at auction by Richard Hatch Auctions of Flat Rock, North Carolina on 18 February 2005. Maybe Mr (or Ms) Graff made only a few pieces of glass, since he (or she) doesn't seem to have left much of a trace in the glass art world.  But if you know anything about Graff Studio Glass, or have any examples, I would be very interested to hear from you. 

Last year to mark its thirtieth anniversary, the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass published a major survey of current glass practice in New Zealand.  With 180 pages and a large number of beautiful colour photographs this is a magnificent introduction to the work of 115 of New Zealand's leading glass artists.  Each artist is given a full page spread, with some extending to two pages.  Edited for the Society by Evelyn Dunstan, there is an introductory essay by Grace Cochrane, and a short outline of the beginnings of studio glass in New Zealand by Stuart Park.  There is an introduction to the physics and chemistry of glass by one of the pioneers of glass in New Zealand, John Croucher, now a director of Gaffer Glass.  An illustrated guide to the technology and practice of studio glass describes the range of techniques from cold glass fabrication, warm glass working processes and the several ways of producing hot glass, flamework, glass-blowing, casting and ne...