bodner051

I wrote yesterday about the wonderful tamarillos of Lou Pendergrast-Mathieson. But you can't talk about glass tamarillos and not refer to the work of Fran Anderton, who has made tamarillos very much her own fruit.  I have admired them for quite a while, and was very pleased to be able to acquire one from the Whanganui Glass Festival exhibition in October last year.   Fran was born in England (and nothing wrong with that, I say assertively) and moved to New Zealand as a schoolgirl.  She trained in glass design and production at UCOL Whanganui, graduating with a Diploma in 2003. She has a strong interest in the natural envi ronment, which she attributes in part to having a plant propagator for a mother and a florist for a sister, though Fran says she is also influenced by the uniqueness of New Zealand's beautiful native bush, beaches and scenery . Avocadoes, citrus and olives have all provided inspiration for her bottles and bowls, but in my view it is her tamarillo bottle...

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...

I have mentioned before my admiration of the glass of Northland artist Kathy Shaw-Urlich. Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting K athy in her workshop and seeing the wonderful new glass windows she is designing and making for the marae of her Ngati Hau people at Whakapara , north of Whangarei .  Th i s is a project supported by a Te Waka Toi Creative NZ Arts Grant, which Kathy was awarded last year.  A new wharekai (dining room) Te T awaka is to be built next year, and the project includes three windows for that, which Kathy has almost completed . C urrently she is working on the three panels that will fit in the main window of the wharenui Te Ihi o Ne h ua, which was opened in 1998 (see http://www.naumaiplace.com/site/whakapara/home/page/147/marae-buildings/ ). The designs for the win d ows have been developed by Kathy arising from discussions on the marae. There were also visits to places that are special to Ngati Hau such as the river and waterfall Waiariki and the ma...

In my last post I talked about the history of Avalon Glass, based largely on the account of it by one of the founders, Greg Smith.  Greg has provided a few corrections and clarifications of the roles of some of those involved, which is much appreciated. But he has also provided an update on what he is doing now.  Not currently making glass, he has been pursuing his career as an actor, and is about to be seen in New Zealand cinemas in the new release Mt Zion (in NZ cinemas from 6 February 2013). Greg may be seen in the trailer which features on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0gHwasfR7g , and the screen captures shown here are drawn from there. Greg plays a promoter who auditions the wannabe Bob Marleys who are the centrepiece of the story - 'some sort of welcoming party for Captain Cook and his Endeavours' is a memorable line. I know little about the film other than I have seen in the trailer, but you may be sure I'll be going to see it, and not just to see this ...

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, ...

Recently I bought on TradeMe, from my usual supplier of Taranaki glass goodies, a paperweight.  It’s a good piece, well made, but what especially attracted my attention was the signature.  It seemed to be clearly signe d J. Leggott ’81 N.Z. Now what made that interesting is that the story goes (not the least as provided by John Leggott in an interview in the Taranaki Herald in 1988) that there was this New Plymouth potter called John Leggott, who had previously been potting in North Queensland and fishing on the Barrier Reef. He saw the Pacific Glass ‘83 exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, in 1983, and was so impressed by the wonder of glass that he set up his own glass studio at his pottery workshop in Kellyville Heights, Merrilands in New Plymouth.  There are four pieces in Stuart Park’s glass collection signed J. Leggott ’85, so one would assume they were relatively early pieces John made there. But my friendly TradeMe supplier was quite ...

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