Artists in a glass all of their own

Ann Robinson (left) and Ann Porter. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Auckland has been full of glass over the past few weeks, and not just the broken bottles left from the weekly rubbish collection.

Coinciding with the bi-annual conference of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass earlier this month, six glass exhibitions are showing around Auckland, and one recently closed at the Anna Bibby Gallery.

The Masterworks exhibition features artists from New Zealand and Australia, and also marks the reopening of their Ponsonby Rd store, which has been refitted with a glass-fronted exhibition space.

Masterworks, celebrating 20 years in the craft business, was first opened in Parnell on April 1, 1986, by Sara Sadd and Ann Porter. Porter has been exhibiting glass for even longer, having organised senior New Zealand glass artist Ann Robinson's first solo show in 1984.

Robinson and Porter chuckle like old friends, recalling mulled wine in the courtyard of the Newmarket co-operative gallery. Sadd still owns work from that show, and Porter has an even earlier piece, a blown glass vase she bought for $15, for which Robinson won a student design award.

Robinson says the New Zealand art of glass, although still relatively young, is thriving.

"There has been an explosion of different sorts of expression," she says. "I'm very strongly a vessel maker and I do sort of move a little bit out of that from time to time, very tentatively, because I am rather afraid of how you might define sculpture. It doesn't seem to be stopping other people," she says with a laugh.

Things were different in 1986, when Masterworks focused more on ceramics and it seemed everyone who visited the shop was making pottery.

"There was such a strong tradition through the night schools and adult education classes," says Porter. "You would stand in the gallery and people would come in and talk about raku firing. They were just people who had taken a night class and they had real knowledge of what was happening with clay.

"And the glass was, 'Wow, what happens here?' And gradually that has changed."

Porter says they no longer stock textiles and have very little wood, but ceramics are still very popular, as are studio jewellery and glass.

"There are a lot of people who collect [glass], who go to the classes just so they can appreciate how [glass casting] is done," says Porter.

Glass casting evolved in New Zealand in the 1980s and uniquely local techniques were developed, mostly by Robinson.

"Ann pioneered this technique in New Zealand, and the generosity with which she shared her knowledge has meant that a lot of young artists - and mature artists too - have been able to shortcut along the way," says Porter.

Robinson: "There were people in New Zealand starting to explore and try and work out how you could melt glass, and were melting bottles in the backyards of their flats, and they didn't know about what was happening overseas."

Having studied glass-blowing at Elam in 1980, Robinson became increasingly fascinated with the possibility of casting glass and started experimenting with a "lost wax" bronze-casting method she had encountered 15 years previously.

This was fortunate because ceramic-casting techniques would not have been as suitable for glass.

An encounter with an American scientist, who was involved with making 8m-wide telescope lenses, helped to refine the process.

"There were influences that came from other areas that didn't exist overseas," says Robinson. "A major influence for me was what was happening in the stone-carving scene, the jade-carving, the rock-hounds and the machinery they were inventing.

"Overseas there was a tradition of glass-working, like the Bavarian and the German traditions with these lathes made specifically for glass.

"We didn't know anything about them so we just had a look at what the jade carvers were doing and began using their machines, which were diamond machines. And your tooling directs the way your creativity goes."

A close relationship with an Auckland company, Gaffer Glass, which has become one of the world's major suppliers of coloured casting glass, was also vital, says Robinson.

"One thing that has developed is the supply of glass within Auckland for the glass-casting scene, which loosened up and facilitated progress, because it was such a suitable glass for casting that we left behind quite a lot of problems we were having."

Adds Porter: "The attrition rate [of works] was enormous. For every one in the gallery, there were five or six on the studio floor." 

 
Exhibition

What: Contemporary Glass, 2006
Where and when: Masterworks Gallery, 77 Ponsonby Rd, to Mar 25
See also:
* Chandelier, Objectspace, to Apr 1
* Stephen Bradbourne: New Work, FhE/G2, to Mar 31
* III by Ann Robinson, Elizabeth McClure and Emily Siddell, FhE, to Apr 13
* Exposed 2, Uxbridge Gallery, to Mar 23