New Zealand Glass: 'New Zealand Society Artists Glass'

Friday, 22 February 2019

CoLab 2019 Conference Whanganui was a Great Event

For only the second time in their history, the national glass art organisations of Australia and New Zealand have combined to hold a major international conference. Ausglass, the principal body for the promotion of contemporary glass in Australia, and the New Zealand Society of Glass Artists met for a wonderful weekend of glass in Whanganui, followed by a series of workshops. The first joint conference was held at Inglewood in Taranaki in April 1983 - see http://newzealandglass.blogspot.com/2012/08/nz-society-artists-in-glass-conference.html.

CoLab 2019 was a much larger occasion, with over 220 participants from NZSAG and Ausglass, as well as international guest speakers from Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, UK and USA. The theme was Collaboration, expressed in a number of ways. The event itself was a collaboration between the two national glass organisations, and several speakers or groups of speakers spoke about they way in which collaboration with other artists was a feature of their glass practice.

To celebrate the theme of Collaboration, the chandelier masters Crystal Chain Gang (Leanne Williams and Jim Dennison) - with lots of help! - made a collaborative chandelier for The CoLab Conference. NZSAG and Ausglass Members were collaborative partners in this exciting project, making myriad elements to create a dynamic, illuminated and unique collective work of art glass. The finished piece was on exhibition at the Sarjeant Gallery over the course of the conference. The project could not have been realised without the generous support of NZSAG, Ausglass, The Sarjeant Gallery and New Zealand Glassworks.

These are some of those who collaborated in making the CoLab Chandelier.

The Sarjeant Gallery hosted the NZSAG / Ausglass Members' Exhibition, always a conference highlight, and a number of well deserved prizes were awarded, with Whanganui Mayor Hamish McDouall making the presentations, under the watchful eye of the Presidents of the two organisations.

Carmen Simmonds (NZSAG, left) and Kate Nixon (Ausglass) reading out the prize winners' names.

Mayor Hamish with Anne Robinson (above left), Sue Hawker (above right), Lee Howes (centre), Keith Grinter (below left) and Richard Clements (below right).

As a way of engaging the Whanganui public, but also because it was fun, a team of glassblowers went back to (nearly) the beginnings of glass-making, re-creating on the Castlecliff foreshore a wood fired Roman style glass furnace.

Sui Jackson from Australia led a team in building an adobe furnace; a simple, wood fired construction that could be built quickly and cheaply from locally sourced materials. Throughout the afternoon public demonstrations from local and international glass blowers showed just what could be done when working in this primitive style, sometimes using a 2 piece mould made from pumice found on the beach.

Photo: Geoffery Bunker

CoLab 2019 was a highly successful event, full of learning, fun, new and renewed friendships, and of course, lots of collaboration. It would not have been possible without the support of some generous sponsors:

Government sponsors

Civic Sponsors

Whanganui & Partners

Ucol

Premium

Air Chathams

Partner

David Jones Motors

Wanganui Chronicle Newspaper

NZ Glassworks

Associate

Black Door Gallery

Canberra Glassworks

Progress Castlecliff

Cristalica Studio Glass

Supporter

Kurt Merker GmbH

CDK Stone NZ Ltd

Nick Mount Glass

Artists prizes

McDonald Equipment Ltd

Gaffer Glass

Suzanne Milham

Grinter Glass

Shinagawa Refractories Australasia NZ Ltd

Glass Art in New Zealand (GAINZ)

Presenting artist sponsorship

Jan McLean Designs Ltd

Inkt

Annette Cave

Peter Nolan

Venter and Hull Chartered Accountants

Country Lane & Fifty-Five

Trade site

His Glassworks

DichroNZ

GS Traders

Nick Mount Glass

Melt 45

Zircar Refractory Composites, Inc. Mold Mix 6

Glass Art in New Zealand (GAINZ)

... as well as those who preferred their generosity to remain anonymous

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

Murray Hill Made Lovely Glass at Inglewood

Signed MH85 6.5cm high

Living in Taranaki in 1983, 21 year old Murray Hill became interested in the glass being produced at Tony Kuepfer's workshop at Inglewood. Tony tells me Murray 'kept hanging around'. Having graduated with a B.Sc. in biochemistry, he began working at weekends in Tony's studio in 1983. He worked on the Motunui project and in the dairy factory, and saved enough money to spend a year learning to blow glass – he proved his persistence. Tony was able to arrange for Murray to receive a vocational training grant from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council in 1984 which also supported his working full-time at Inglewood. He continued there until 1987, making exhibition pieces as well as what he referred to as "domestic glass production work". He exhibited in the Philips Studio Glass Award in 1986 and was the overall award winner in the Crafts Council exhibition Glass '87 in Christchurch in 1987. Elizabeth McClure was the judge for the 4^th Annual Contemporary Craft exhibition for Glass at Compendium Gallery in Auckland in 1987, and she awarded the prize to Murray. (You can read about Elizabeth at http://newzealandglass.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/elizabeth-mcclure-important-influence.html)


Signed M Hill '86, Earthworks paper label 22cm high

In 1988 Murray began working full-time for the Labour Department in New Plymouth, but he continued to blow glass at Inglewood at weekends. He won the ANZ Bank Art Award of $1,500 in the exhibition Fibre and Glass at the NZ Academy of Fine Arts in Wellington in 1988. In 1989, Murray went to Teachers Training College and then was a secondary school art teacher until 2013. Murray stopped making glass about 1990, though he did exhibit in the exhibition The Drama of Glass in Wellington in May 1991.

11 cm high

The illustration at left is Murray's entry in the 1986 Philips Studio Glass Award catalogue. The blown, cut and acid etched piece was entitled Taranaki Bite. In his artist statement, Murray said "Glass is very seductive, it is easy to think you are making a statement with a piece, when really you are showing the intrinsic dynamics of the glass. I want to impose on the glass, not have it impose on me."

The piece at right is in a private collection in Taranaki and would seem to be from the same series as the Philips piece. It shows the colour not apparent in the monochrome catalogue photograph.

In an email to me recently, Murray said: "Right from the very beginning I was motivated by the desire to make sculptural 'art' pieces. During the financial strictures of the 80s and 90s this was not always a realistic proposition. Glass studios are expensive to run, and doing a lot of production work to pay the bills quickly stopped being fun. By production I mean the large volumes of day-to-day saleable items. You also had to be a very quick learner (which I wasn't) – studio time and materials cost money and failures had to be minimised. Sadly this worked against following up those mad ideas that were begging to be brought into form. Having said that, my happiest memories are of assisting Tony Kuepfer in the studio – bringing the gathers of hot glass to him (he could really blow glass) and in his hands, the making of stemmed wine glasses, bottles, plates – anything at all – was this miraculous process. To have experienced that is a true gift. Midwinter in Inglewood was pretty harsh, and a hot glass studio was a great place to be – everyone wanted to stand next to the furnace!

"Lastly I must mention Nelson's Bakery of Inglewood, which was just around the corner from Tony's studio. They made these amazing steak and oyster pies (with real oysters) – stunning! A lot of glassblowing was powered by those pies!"

I'm pleased to report that Nelson's Bakery apparently continues in Inglewood, though I haven't sampled a steak and oyster pie - yet.


Signed 'Dropped by M H 86' 30cm high

The pieces of Murray's glass in my collection are from 1985, 1986 and 1987. Murray's work in glass seems not to be widely recognised so I show a range of pieces here to illustrate what he produced.

I asked Murray about the inscription 'dropped by MH' on this piece. He replied: 'When I was assisting Tony a piece would occasionally pop off the punti, and if it was at a certain temperature it would bounce and roll, and with luck the punti could be reheated and the piece picked up, and finished. These pieces always seemed a bit special to me, especially if they came through unblemished - have a close look on the sides and you may see some scuff marks. The odd, dull, hollow clonk these pieces made when they hit the concrete was so surprising, even more so when the piece was at a very finished stage and the crash of shattering glass is expected. Thanks, that has bought back the memories of all sorts of sights, sounds and smells that were long forgotten.'