Artist of the Month
Starting out
There was never a plan but suddenly 40 years of glassmaking has somehow slipped by. When I was studying ceramics and lithography for NDD at Wolverhampton College of Art, I was awarded a Travelling Scholarship (1963). When everyone in the UK was so excited about Bernard Leach and ‘studio pottery’, I was fascinated by Scandinavian design and took to the North Sea to Sweden to visit Stig Lindberg a ceramics designer for Gustavsberg ceramics factory.
It was on this scholarship visit that I visited the ‘The Kingdom Glass’ in Småland which included Orrefors and Kosta glass factories. As a teacher I am tempted here to embark on a diatribe on Svenskaslöjdföreningen but instead I will summarise my glassmaking journey and explain my current preoccupations.
I had visited some of the Stourbridge glasshouses, “death of a thousand cuts” (Ruskin), but was absolutely sold on the idea of artists working with skilled craftsmen, as they were in Sweden and ideally artists becoming skilled craftsmen. Glass at this time seemed totally inaccessible to me but with the advent of the so called ‘studio glass movement’ in the mid 1960’s and my attending a course with Sam Herman at the Royal College of Art (1968), suddenly it all came together.
The small glass studio was a possibility as demonstrated by Harvey Littleton in the USA and I went back to Sweden to study at Orrefors Glass School, soon after its inception. I was funded by Surrey County Council on this occasion, when teaching in Farnham - West Surrey College of Art & Design.
About my work
From the beginning there was always a conflict between creativity and technique and as many of my contemporaries at the RCA were inventing ways of working independently from traditional skills, my ‘training’ and discipline needed liberation and like most creative people, I was looking for a way of developing a personal, recognizable style. So in the accompanying images there are some milestones on this journey.
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Budding Vase’ is a hot constructed piece using dabs of hot glass to ‘glue’ the budding elements to the base. This was fun, lively work which, in a way, I have returned to. |
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The straw stemware really illustrates that Orrefors glass quality I wanted to master. It took a number of further years of practice to consolidate this level of refinement. I didn’t want to make hundreds of these when a Japanese company was interested in selling them and the straw stems turned out to be a deterrent for any other hand made producer. |
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Greenpiece at the V&A. In the late 80’s I was working through ideas of trying to find ways of retaining the dynamic lines of glass forms we see on the blowing iron, as gravity pulls at the soft hot glass. Vessels always need to stand on surfaces to give them stability. To try to retain the tension in blown forms I cut them in half and reconstructed them on flat glass. The idea was to create suspended forms by mounting them on sheets of transparent glass – unseen. But then the flat glass had the potential of the edges creating two and three-dimensional world in combination. Then of course, there was colour, texture sandblasting, cutting etc etc. Much of this work is now represented in public and private collections including ‘Kraken Storm’ at the National Museum of Scotland and recently ‘Sting’ at North Lands Creative Glass in Caithness. |
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Having managed to embark in a new direction and working with colour and drawing with sandblasting, my fascination with the ‘Ariel ’ glass technique was rekindled. Edvin Öhrström at Orrefors in 1930’s developed a technique of manipulating bubbles between layers of hot glass. Many designers have worked with this technique with limited control so this became a research question, to revive and develop the technique in a more contemporary context.
This as it tuned out became a long and challenging task, the interface image below is an example of the theme I worked with. The medium of the sea and the notional medium of cyberspace. I returned to the theme when I was invited to participate in 50 Artist 50 Vases also detailed below in Frauenau Germany.
My current work goes back to the joy of working at the furnace, manipulating molten glass and being driven by the pace of this viscous medium. Suddenly I need to get back to what glassiness is about by working with window glass and blown glass and using functional form that is easy on the eye. Molten glass in the making seems alive moving, changing, elastic, ductile, even sexy, on the go all the time until its heat is lost. Then it is fixed.
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I have tried to capture this dynamic by allowing the glass some freedom. I hope that I have made it come alive by fixing a moment of ‘poise’ in some pieces and retaining symmetry in others. The intention is to let the glass magnify and distort in its thicker areas but remain transparent where it is thin. The piece is a kind of installation. 'Two Secure’ is the first of a series of objects sharing in a single work, some of the qualities of the larger works.
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‘What am I Like?’ This image is for Collect at the V&A. There are 4 scenarios, ‘hanging out’, ‘developing’, ‘budding’ and ‘liberating’ the scenario with the bottle flying out. The vessels are metaphors for us. |
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‘ ‘Hanging Out’ has one loose bottle that can be moved and is surrounded by some abandon. The making is sometimes precise, but often pieces are allowed some freedom. |
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Ray Flavell is one of the Artist's who's work is included in the Cutting Edge Exhibition showing at the Aberdeen Art Gallery from 9 February 2008 to 12 April 2008. | |