The coherence in my work and glass art
I have worked with glass art since 2007. In the beginning, I worked in different directions and tried out different things, which meant that my glass art was missing coherence. I think that it is common for many new artists, because you have to try a lot of things in the beginning.
In the last 4-5 years, a clear pattern has shown in all my glass art, and today my glass art is quite distinguished from other glass artists. I often experience that my customers are able to recognise my work, e.g. they ask me if it is my glass art they have seen displayed in another gallery.
The magnificent nature – everywhere on earth – is my primary source of inspiration. It is beautiful, shimmering, wild, unpredictable, indomitable and without any straight lines. I try to recreate this, for example through the structure in the glass.
The purpose with my glass art is therefore ”just” to create pleasure, feeling and happiness for others – who like me – become fascinated by the alluring sceneries the nature forms. Harmony with a touch of wildness.
Earlier on this site, I have briefly described my 4 characteristics incorporated in these 4 points:
- The structure of the glass.
- The transparency of the glass.
- The shape of the glass.
- The colours of the glass.
The 4 points will be elaborated below.
The structure of the glass
Many glass artists like to have a pattern in the glass or decorate it with a figure or a shape, e.g. a bird.
I have chosen to create structures in the glass – often even in several layers. I always begin by making crackle glass plates in shimmering colours. I create the crackle in the glass using water and certain firing temperatures.
Afterwards, the crackle glass plates will continue to new processes to create more advanced structures. I have, for the time being, developed 9 different techniques, which often needs many firings.
The most advanced technique is to have several layers of crackle glass on top of each other, then fire it, to get the colours with lowest density to move upwards and only just enter the top layer, to create the structure and colouring as wanted.
This technique is very tricky as the process needs to be precisely controlled. The glass will get hideous just by getting 5 minutes too long or too less in the firing and with just 10 degrees higher or lower temperature. The process needs to be stopped exactly when the mix of the colours is beautiful, and that is a truly short period of time.
Temperature and time depend of the sizes and colours. To be able to control this process, I have made a catalogue of almost 900 trials, as my point of reference.
The transparency of the glass
To be able to enjoy the structure of the glass in all its depths, I often add transparent glass in the design. That way it is possible to look down in the glass and see several layers of structures and encounter small 3D experiences.
Using transparent glass makes is possible to create art in 3 dimensions, as for instance painters can’t. Even in thin glass, e.g. 6 millimetres, it is possible to create effects of depth.
The shape of the glass
To me the most fun – and most difficult – thing to do is to make large organic and sculptural shapes.
The natural thickness of the glass is 6 millimetres, but my glass is often thicker to be able to represent the structures in 3D.
I use gravity to mould the glass. As thicker glass is heavier than 6 millimetre glass, the weight of the glass will lead to bending of it, before it has been heated enough and elastic enough. Especially, the intensive bending can make the glass break.
When moulding the glass, I use a glass plate with a higher melting point beneath my glass art. It prevents that the glass starts to bend before the right temperature – and when the right temperature arises the thick glass will be ready to be moulded.
I also create smaller items, which are more constricted, and therefore the price can be lower.
The colours of the glass
The glass is coloured with chemicals – most of it with small portions of copper, lead or sulphur / selenium.
If mixing the colours between these 3 groups, the glass will have a chemical reaction, and turn the outcome muddy, brown and ugly. Therefore, it is not often seen that glass has both red and blue colours for instance.
I often use the colour French Vanilla, and unfortunately it reacts with blue, green and purple colours. Sometimes, I divide the colours with some transparent glass. Other times, I make sure that the colours have a sharp outline and thereby get a sharp brown line containing the colours in the design.
