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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 ...

The New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass was founded in August 1980 at the first New Zealand Glassworkers Symposium, a gathering of 53 glass artists and enthusiasts at Hawkes Bay Community Coillege, Taradale. The first NZSAG conference was held in August 1981at the Hot Glass Company workshop of Peter Raos and Peter Viesnik in Devonport, Auckland. NZSAG is going to celebrate its 30th anniversary at its Conference and Annual General Meeting to be held at Alexandra Park in Auckland at Labour Weekend 2010. Registrations are now open, with early bird registrations closing 24th September 2010. A great programme of speakers, demonstrations, exhibitions and celebrations has been arranged For full details and a registration form go to www.nzsag.co.nz .

Congratulations to Kerikeri glass artist Sue Hawker. Sue was awarded the 2010 Ranamok Glass Prize with her tall Pâte de verre vase entitled Too much is never enough. The Ranamok Glass Prize was established in 1994, and is an annual award for glass artists who are resident in Australia or New Zealand. Works selected for Ranamok are expected to be 'a major effort in the artist's personal body of work'. The judges look for pieces that are innovative and display excellence and imagination in both the quality of the idea and its execution. Sue's caption for her work says: Too much gloom, too much doom. Too much misery, too much! Enough! Drink of Me, I am joy and vitality. Now too much is never enough. But for the Ozzies it's just possible too much may be too much. Sue is the third Kiwi to win Ranamok in the last four years, following Lisa Walsh in 2009 and Evelyn Dunstan in 2007. Other Kiwi winners include David Murray in 2003 and Emma Camden in 1999. If we d...

I've been taking a bit more interest in New Zealand architectural glass lately, for several reasons. One of these was the need to include architectural glass in the note I wrote for the forthcoming book on NZ glass being published by the NZ Society of Artists in Glass. That led me to try to make contact with Robert Middlestead, which I was able to thanks to the wonders of Google. As a real bonus, however, Robert was in New Zealand recently, finally tidying up and disposing of his workshop studio, which he had retained even though it is a long time since he lived and worked here. So I was able to meet him and talk about his work. Robert was born in Canada in 1947. On his post college wanderings in 1974 he arrived in Auckland. In due course he met John Croucher and became involved in the Sunbeam Cooperative of glassworkers. He had had a minimal amount of exposure to glass in California on his travels, but like many other early Sunbeams he was substantially self taught. After ...

I have just learned with sadness of the death in July 2009 of Stephen Bélanger-Taylor. I visited Stephen and Denise in their studio set against the foothills of the Southern Alps west of Geraldine in 2007. I went to see Denise's blown glass work, but was delighted to learn of Stephen's work with stained glass, his pride in his energy efficient kiln design, and to visit his then recently opened window at Woodbury. Stephen Bélanger-Taylor held a BA from the Royal College of Art, London . He was an Associate of the Royal College of Arts, and Fellow of the Master Glass Painters in England . Stephen Taylor was born in South-East London in June 1940 during the blitz and the Battle of Britain. The repair, restoration or replacement of windows in bombed-out churches and cathedrals throughout Europe was to become a significant part of Stephen's life as a stained glass designer. It is said that Stephen would refer ironically to Adolf Hitler as the 'patron saint of stained gl...

The piece I posted yesterday to celebrate the installation of my new glass studio was made by Chuck Simpson in the studio at Inglewood that he operated with his wife Lesley Justin, after Tony Kuepfer moved to Whanganui. It's not dated, but has his full name signature Chuck Simpson. I have another piece, not signed or dated, but again perforated, and I am sure it is Chuck's work. Chuck of course made a name while he was in New Zealand for the stoush he had over some other perforated pieces with James Mack who was the selector and with the organiser of a national glass exhibition at the Suter Art Gallery in Nelson - but that's another story. Sadly, both James and Chuck are no longer alive.

At long last I have created the space to house and work on my collection. A new studio addition to my home provides space for the glass collection, and also makes my house more toddler - friendly, so it should be possible for those grandsons to visit. And it means I can show my collection to glass enthusiasts who may care to call. In moving the glass into its new home (a work in progress - the new shelving hasn't arrived yet), I have rediscovered some old friends, as well as getting a few surprises at pieces I had forgotten. The plan is that this will also result in more blogging, with these newly found old pieces to write about. I have better facilities for photography, too, so hopefully that will improve as well. So here as a teaser is a fairly remarkable piece, made in Taranaki in the 1980s. I'll tell you more about it in a future blog.