bodner051

I recently bought this piece of pâte de verre glass on TradeMe. It was made by Sue Treanor, probably towards the end of the 1990s. Sue exhibited at an exhibition I remember seeing in Parliament in Wellington in 1999, organised by the NZ Society of Artists in Glass as a promotional vehicle, and she also had a show at Avid in Wellington in August 1999. Sue Treanor enrolled for a diploma in glass at UNITEC in 1994, amongst a group of students who became quite  distinguished glass artists. In August 1996 there was an exhibition entitled ‘Maiden glass: UNITEC girlz come out’ at the Glass Arts Gallery in Ponsonby, a regrettably short lived gallery with quite close links to the UNITEC campus at Carrington. As well as Sue Treanor, those exhibiting were Lou Pendergrast, Nicole Lucas, Megan Tidmarsh, Kellee Cook, and Layla Walter. In 1999, Sue Treanor had a piece selected for exhibition at 'International Expo 2' held in Tampa, Florida by the prestigious Glass Art Society of USA. (Former ...

I mentioned in my last post the great provenance provided for a recent acquisition by a catalogue from the first Philips Studio Glass Award exhibition in 1984. Here's a piece of Chuck Simpson's glass I purchased recently, which also has a great confirmation of its provenance. This is clearly signed  'Chuck Simpson', so there can be no doubt who made it. But Chuck Simpson made glass at Byron Bay in Australia before he came to Inglewood with Lesley Justin in 1987, and he made glass at Eumundi in Queensland after he and Lesley, by then his wife, returned to Australia in 1990. It is typical of glass he made at Inglewood, but it is great to have its New Zealand origin confirmed by the marketing card that came with it.   But that is not the first Inglewood piece to have come with its own marketing card.  The piece to the left is signed 'Glass Art NZ', a name which seems to have been used both by Chuck and Lesley Simpson and by Andrew Williams, though that is ...

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...

One trap when you try to write a short history of something is that you leave somebody out. When I wrote my essay The beginnings of New Zealand glass in New Zealand Glass Art (Bateman 2010), I made just that mistake. I tried to describe all the glass studios that were in existence in the 1970s and 1980s, but sadly I left out a small but important example, Avalon Glass which was set up in 1985 near Fox River on the West Coast of the South Island. Although I didn’t know a great deal about it, I was aware of it and I should have included it - I simply overlooked it. I must apologise to all those involved, especially Greg Smith who had told me about it. This small bowl, a recent TradeMe purchase, is signed G Smith 88 But I know a lot more about Avalon Glass now, because, through the kindness of Evelyn Dunstan, I have been able to read the remarkably frank and revealing paper that Greg Smith gave on the history of Avalon Glass at the 2003 conference of the Glass Art Society in Seattle, ...

I recently had a tussle on TradeMe with my Australian competitor 'Slumbum'.  Stephen is a keen bidder on New Zealand glass, while I do my best to keep pieces in New Zealand.  Opononi trader Tigerlillie advertised a piece as being by Keith Mahy, with an indistinct signature but probably dated 1990.  'Slumbum' and I both realised a signed and dated piece by Keith from 1990 was unusual, and so we went for it.  He pushed me a bit, but I succeeded in the end.  We more than doubled the reserve, which no doubt pleased Tigerlillie.  In the meantime I had emailed Keith to seek verification that the piece was his.  Alas, after I had won the auction the reply came that it was not a piece Keith recognised as his work. So I waited curiously to see what it was.  To my delight, the signature was one I recognise readily - now, though I wouldn't have known it until recently.  In that curious way whereby once you see one piece, others turn up, it turned out t...

A mistake I made in my article on the history of glass in New Zealand came home to haunt me the other day.  In New Zealand Glass Art I described Inglewood glass artist Chuck Simpson as being Canadian.  A trader on TradeMe offering a stoppered bottle by Chuck (at right - TradeMe 428728782) apparently followed my mistake by saying Chuck was Canadian.  I'm not sure where I got the idea from, but I was wrong. A fascinating article about Chuck Simpson's glass appeared in the Australian journal Craft Arts International (32, 1994-5 p79).  It included biographical information indicating that Chuck was born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, in 1944. He got a Bachelor's degree in Education in Pennsylvania, and then taught secondary school for fifteen years, mostly in Victoria, Australia.  In 1985 he began working in the hot glass studio of Colin Heaney at Byron Bay in northeastern New South Wales, before moving to New Zealand and leasing Tony Kuepfer's studio at Ing...