No More Running Amok

 

In 1994, Australian glass visionary Maureen Cahill and coal industry executive Andy Plummer teamed up to establish the (then) Resource Finance Corporation or RFC Glass Prize. It involved an annual monetary prize for a work of glass made by an artist in Australia or New Zealand, with the winning piece being acquired for the Ranamok (formerly RFC) Collection. RFC morphed into Whitehaven Coal, Eureka Corporation and Excel Corporation, and the prize morphed in the Ranamok Prize.

The first exhibition was held at the Earth Exchange Museum in Sydney in 1995 and now, in 2014, the 20th Exhibition, being held at the Canberra Glassworks before travelling to Sydney and Brisbane, has been announced to be the last. The Ranamok collection of works by the winners will be donated to the Australian National Gallery in Canberra, which will make it accessible on an ongoing basis.

Photo: Kathryn Wightman

The Ranamok Prize has provided an opportunity for a veritable Who's Who of Australian and New Zealand glass artists to show their skills and compete for the prize. Some of the entrants have been quite new to glass, keen to see how their work stands up in that environment, while Ranamok has also attracted entries from some of the leading glass artists of both countries.

The 2014 Ranamok Prize has been awarded to Kathryn Wightman, who teaches at the Glass School in Whanganui. Dr Wightman's 2011 PhD from the University of Sunderland explored the integration of glassmaking and printmaking, with the development of a number of creative glassmaking processes inspired by printmaking processes, especially related to textiles. Warmest congratulations, Kathryn.

Photo: Kathryn Wightman Facebook

 Kathryn's prize-winning work is a truly remarkable three metre long carpet runner in glass. Kathryn screen-printed coloured glass powders to create a textured carpet pattern. Then, as photos on her Facebook page show, she walked barefoot along the carpet, leaving footprints in the 'sand' of the glass colours. The 'carpet' was then fused in the kiln to create the resulting glass masterpiece.

Photo: Kathryn Wightman Facebook

  

 
The only New Zealand finalist in the first RFC Prize in 1995 was Kirsten Sach of Glen Eden. In 1992 Kirsten was a student at Carrington Polytechnic, and I was pleased to buy this small cast glass 'Lotus Cup'  from an exhibition at 'The Pumphouse' in Takapuna that year. Kirsten's Ranamok entry in 1995 was a much more developed work  - you can see it on the very fine and profusely illustrated Ranamok website http://www.ranamok.com, which features the work of all the Finalists and the Prize winners.

New Zealand winners at Ranamok have been Emma Camden (1999), David Murray (2003) Evelyn Dunstan (2007), Lisa Walsh (2009), Sue Hawker (2010) and now Kathryn Wightman. I'm delighted that my own collection includes works by all of these except Lisa (must do something about that, Lisa!) even if they are not always quite as grand as the winning pieces. New Zealand Ranamok finalists represented in my collection include Ruth Allen, Claudia Borella, Lee Brogan, Dominic Burrell, Christine Cathie, Mike Crawford, Keith Grinter, Robyn Irwin, Nicole Lucas, Keely McGlynn, Lyndsay Patterson, Lou Pendergrast-Matheson, Rachel Ravenscroft, Carmen Simmonds, Greg Smith, Hoana Stachl.  I even have works by Australian finalists Ben Edols and Michael Larwood in my small non-NZ collection. There have been other NZ finalists, of course, but not represented in my collection - I guess I've just developed a shopping list! 

But I conclude by showing my very own Wightman. You could say I was an 'early adopter' of Kathryn's work in New Zealand. She arrived to take up a position as tutor at the Glass School in Whanganui in May of 2012, and gave a presentation at the NZSAG conference Generate in Whanganui in October 2012, talking about her work printing and creating 'textiles' in glass. I found this fascinating, and struggled to understand just how she did it (I still do, rather). In the associated exhibition of work for sale, Kathryn showed three platters which were some of the last she had made in Sunderland before coming out to New Zealand; I was delighted to be able to buy one of those.
 

Whanganui Plans a Great Festival in September 2013

I've had a couple of pleasing responses to my blogs recently. Chuck and Indiah Simpson's daughter, Whitney-Leigh emailed, expressing appreciation of my words and photos of her parents' work from Inglewood in the 1980s. And the latest Newsletter of the Wanganui Glass Group says "Stuart’s Blog is very well researched and is a great starting point for all of us with an interest in, and appreciation for NZ Glass." It's great when those I write about are interested to read what I write!

The Newsletter also brings preliminary news of the events that are being planned for the Wanganui Festival of Glass, to be held in Whanganui from 7 - 15 September this year. Whanganui is a city that its proud of its glass artists, and the annual Festival showcases the best of their work.  The Festival provides a wide range of opportunities to see glass exhibitions, visit artists in their studios, watch visiting glass experts as they give master classes, admire the work of the up and coming among the students at the Whanganui Glass School, and, of course, to acquire glass. It looks like a very full programme, with many of the best features from past year's events as well as some new ones. I'm certainly hoping to be able to get to Whanganui during that week to take part.



The flyer for the Festival pictured at left features the distinctive work of Whanganui glass artist Carmen Simmonds. Herself a graduate of UCOL Whanganui, and a Ranamok finalist, Carmen has a studio in the countryside outside Whanganui.



The Glass Group Newsletter advises that one of David Traub's beautiful platters (at right) will feature on the poster, the billboards and the event guide for the Festival. David is a former Head of the Glass School, whose involvement in making glass goes back to 1973.

I am delighted to have in my own collection an early example of David's platters, which he made in 2002.

Evelyn Dunstan Continues to Amaze

I made use of my newly retired person's new-found leisure time last week to visit Evelyn Dunstan's exhibition Influence at Orexart Gallery in Auckland.  This is the first time I have seen a whole exhibition of Evelyn's work (she doesn't often show in New Zealand), and I was just amazed.  Her work is intricate in the extreme, achieving complexities in the form and colour of the glass that boggle the mind.  My reaction to the exhibition was a mixture of appreciation of its sheer beauty, with an intellectual curiosity as to how on earth she manages to achieve these forms technically.  I know it has to do with sophisticated casting materials, but it has more to do with inspiration, creativity, tenacity, perseverance and sheer hard work.

Evelyn's website (http://www.evelyndunstan.co.nz/about/bio/) tells us that she started glass casting in 2003 after 25 years as a graphic artist, designer and illustrator, combining a full time career with raising 4 children. In 2002 a life-long passion with clay, the need to develop her own style of art and more family time resulted in the change of career to a full time sculptural artist setting up a home studio.   

Paua 2004 (Stuart Park collection) 

After working with colour all her life, Evelyn discovered in leadlighting the properties of glass, combining colour with light.  She followed that with a basic night class in glass casting (2003) adding to sculptural forms the depth and dimension of glass.  In 2004 I went to an exhibition at Uxbridge in Howick of work by the students of that course and was delighted to purchase for my collection what Evelyn tells me was the first piece of glass that she sold.  The way she had incorporated colour into the simple, naturalistic form of the paua attracted me to this work.

After continuing to experiment on her own, Evelyn undertook further training at ArtStation in Auckland in 2004.  It must have been a good course, since she had two works selected as finalists for the Australia - New Zealand Ranamok Prize in 2005, another two finalists in 2006, and then won the Ranamok Prize in 2007 with the remarkable Ngahere Karauna (Forest Crown) (http://www.ranamok.com/2007_detail_pages/Dunstan.htm).

 That basic crown form has continued to provide a basis for some of her work, there being a variety of karauna in the Orexart show.  Two of them (including the one shown above) were entitled Te Turituri, the threat.  By chance Evelyn was in the gallery when I visited, so I asked her about that title.  She explained that the beautiful convolvulus, with its intricate intertwined vines she captures so well is a significant threat in our gardens and bush.  The mix of beauty and danger is an enduring message in art, it seems to me.

The exhibition also included several of Evelyn's remarkable masks, reminiscent of Venetian Carnevale masks, but with a variety of Maori and Pacific cultural references, as well as European ones.  Evelyn's installation  of 24 masks Transparent Illusions was one of her two finalist works at Ranamok 2010, and won the People's Choice award that year. 

 I didn't see it in Canberra, but it was included as a complete installation in Influence at Orexart, a real bonus.