bodner051

Recently I had a chance to combine a non-glass related visit to Auckland with seeing several glass exhibitions and activities. Nothing particularly links these things except my participation, but they did provide some acquisitions for my collection. I'll divide them up so they don't make too big a blog - there'll likely be three in this series. Off the Main Road III at the Red Barn Gallery First up, I went to see Off the Main Road III at Graeme Hitchcock's Red Barn Gallery at Churchill (west of Te Kauwhata , if like me you didn't know where Churchill is). This was an exhibition of glass by Graeme and colleagues Karin Barr, Judi Hadfield and Michelle Judge, with stone sculpture by Jonathan Bowman and bronzes by Todd Butterworth and Phil Neary. It was great to meet Michelle who was on exhibition-minding duty, but otherwise I was the only one there (a mid-week afternoon not being peak exhibition viewing time). There had been good numbers the previous weekend, and on ...

In spite of the severe drought we are experiencing in Northland presently, a tree in my garden has sprouted two very fine tamarillos (aka tree tomatoes). Which i s a bit surprising, since it isn't a tamarillo tree. In fact, these tamarillos are cast glass, with stainless steel foliage and twigs. They are a collaboration between Auckland glass caster Lou Pendergrast-Mathieson and stainless steel fabricator Phillip Moodie.  I saw a 'crop' of these in another non-tamarillo tree in the exhibition Re:Fraction 2012: the Outdoor Glass E xhibition at the Sculpture Park, Waitakaruru last spring. I was struck by their simple beauty, and knew at once I could fin d a host tree in my own garden. What I was less clear about (indeed, really puzzled about) was the title that Lou had given these: 'A Tribute to Esther James'. Who was Esther James? 1950s Hollywood star? 1920s Paris dancer? Both seemed vaguely possible, though why tamarillos would be a tribute was quite mysterious. R...

Recently I had a very enjoyable extended road trip to the South Island, culminating on my way back home with participation in the AGM and Conference of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass and the Wanganui Festival of Glass. While my trip was about more than only glass, I did explore all sorts of exhibitions, collections and installations which offered me many new experiences in glass, yielded a lot of new information and offered me a number of opportunities to add to my collection. I'm planning to share the results of that trip in my blog over the next few weeks.   I don't propose to tell you what these rather varied images are - all will be revealed in forthcoming posts