Crackle Glass by Chuck Simpson

Until now I've been only dimly aware of crackle glass, a form I tended to associate with trinkets from some European and American glass factories, and not something that appealed to me at all.  

So I was very surprised when this cranberry red crackle glass decanter appeared on TradeMe. 

The listing read: 

Cranberry crackle glass decanter with stopper.  
Very pretty and in lovely condition.
 
Signed by Chuck Simpson 1989. 
Very collectible piece.
28cm x 10cm 

No-one except me showed any interest in it, so my bid was successful. Now it has arrived I can confirm it is clearly signed Chuck Simpson 1989, when Chuck was working at Inglewood.

I can't recall seeing any other piece of crackle ware made by a New Zealand glass artist. Of course, now I'm hoping other examples will show up.

An article by Stan & Arlene Weitman in Angela Bowey's Online Glass Museum http://www.glass.co.nz/crackle.htm  tells me that crackle glass is formed by immersing the glass in cold water while it is still molten hot, thereby cracking the glass. The glass is then reheated and either mold or hand blown into the shape desired. The reheating of the glass seals the cracks. On the outside of crackle glass you can feel the cracks, but the inside is smooth.

Having experienced what happens when a hot glass object is dropped accidentally into a bucket of water (the explosion put my young daughter off visiting glass works for a number of years!), it sounds like a scary process, but it does create an interesting effect.



I will be interested to hear of other pieces of New Zealand crackle glass. I wonder how much of it Chuck Simpson made.

Inglewood Cards Provide Great Provenance

I mentioned in my last post the great provenance provided for a recent acquisition by a catalogue from the first Philips Studio Glass Award exhibition in 1984. Here's a piece of Chuck Simpson's glass I purchased recently, which also has a great confirmation of its provenance.

This is clearly signed  'Chuck Simpson', so there can be no doubt who made it. But Chuck Simpson made glass at Byron Bay in Australia before he came to Inglewood with Lesley Justin in 1987, and he made glass at Eumundi in Queensland after he and Lesley, by then his wife, returned to Australia in 1990. It is typical of glass he made at Inglewood, but it is great to have its New Zealand origin confirmed by the marketing card that came with it.

 

But that is not the first Inglewood piece to have come with its own marketing card.  The piece to the left is signed 'Glass Art NZ', a name which seems to have been used both by Chuck and Lesley Simpson and by Andrew Williams, though that is not currently totally clear. All three of them were doing quite similar work, as individually signed pieces by each of them demonstrate.

When I purchased it on TradeMe, it came with a small laminated card, printed on both sides.

The card is delightful for the stylised sketch of the Inglewood church and studio where Tony Kuepfer first set up the studio that he called Glass Plant, subsequently used by Chuck and Lesley and by Andrew. 

This photo, taken in Inglewood in October 2012, shows that the church, with the concrete block studio that Tony Kuepfer built, has reverted to its original religious purpose.

 


The small vase at the right is also signed 'Glass Art NZ', but the card that came with it leaves no doubt that this was indeed made by Andrew Williams. The metallic sheen on the card and its slightly crumpled state makes it a little hard to photograph. I wonder who is represented in the drawing?

  

It is also interesting to see Andrew playing on the history of the Inglewood studio in his marketing. I'm not sure if he was aware of Reg Kempton's studio at Havelock, but Reg had died by this time, so the claim would seem to me to be correct.

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.

Chuck Simpson was not Canadian

A mistake I made in my article on the history of glass in New Zealand came home to haunt me the other day.  In New Zealand Glass Art I described Inglewood glass artist Chuck Simpson as being Canadian.  A trader on TradeMe offering a stoppered bottle by Chuck (at right - TradeMe 428728782) apparently followed my mistake by saying Chuck was Canadian. 

I'm not sure where I got the idea from, but I was wrong. A fascinating article about Chuck Simpson's glass appeared in the Australian journal Craft Arts International (32, 1994-5 p79).  It included biographical information indicating that Chuck was born in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, in 1944. He got a Bachelor's degree in Education in Pennsylvania, and then taught secondary school for fifteen years, mostly in Victoria, Australia.  In 1985 he began working in the hot glass studio of Colin Heaney at Byron Bay in northeastern New South Wales, before moving to New Zealand and leasing Tony Kuepfer's studio at Inglewood. (Thanks to Trevor Breusch for drawing my attention to the CAI article).


The piece at left I bought in 1990 from Masterworks gallery in Parnell, Auckland - it would have been one of the last pieces Chuck made in New Zealand before returning to Australia and the Vesta Hot Glass studio he set up at Eumundi in Queensland with his wife Lesley (formerly Lesley Justin).

Sadly, Chuck Simpson died in April 2001.