Lots of Glass Doings

Recently I had a very enjoyable extended road trip to the South Island, culminating on my way back home with participation in the AGM and Conference of the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass and the Wanganui Festival of Glass.

While my trip was about more than only glass, I did explore all sorts of exhibitions, collections and installations which offered me many new experiences in glass, yielded a lot of new information and offered me a number of opportunities to add to my collection. I'm planning to share the results of that trip in my blog over the next few weeks.

 

I don't propose to tell you what these rather varied images are - all will be revealed in forthcoming posts

Not Keith Mahy, but another Kharen Hope

I recently had a tussle on TradeMe with my Australian competitor 'Slumbum'.  Stephen is a keen bidder on New Zealand glass, while I do my best to keep pieces in New Zealand.  Opononi trader Tigerlillie advertised a piece as being by Keith Mahy, with an indistinct signature but probably dated 1990.  'Slumbum' and I both realised a signed and dated piece by Keith from 1990 was unusual, and so we went for it.  He pushed me a bit, but I succeeded in the end.  We more than doubled the reserve, which no doubt pleased Tigerlillie.  In the meantime I had emailed Keith to seek verification that the piece was his.  Alas, after I had won the auction the reply came that it was not a piece Keith recognised as his work.

So I waited curiously to see what it was.  To my delight, the signature was one I recognise readily - now, though I wouldn't have known it until recently.  In that curious way whereby once you see one piece, others turn up, it turned out to be signed Kharen Hope '90, another piece by the Whanganui artist I have blogged about a couple of times recently.  I would have liked a 1990 piece by Keith, but I am very pleased to add another piece of Kharen's to my collection, and a more substantial, more sculptural piece than the scent bottle I blogged in September.

If you've followed the link I gave to Kharen's pieces in the Charlotte Museum collection (http://www.nzmuseums.co.nz/account/3024/object/658/Blown_Glass_Vase) , you might have noticed that one piece was bought by the donor, Miriam Saphira, as she did not want a man to buy it.  I do hope Dr Saphira doesn't mind too much that this piece of Kharen's is in my collection!

Early New Zealand Glass Artists' work to be displayed

This year the New Zealand Society of Artists in Glass celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. One of the features of every NZSAG conference these days is an exhibition of members' current work. That will be true again this year, with the added bonus that there will also be included some of the earliest work by the pioneers of studio glass in New Zealand. Artists have been searching their basements to find the earliest examples of their work, but I am delighted to have been asked to lend a few pieces from my own collection. One is the Mel Simpson tall bottle I blogged recently, and another is the 1983 Robert Middlestead stained glass panel I blogged in August 2010. A piece by Libby Gray I blogged in January 2008. Here are some others:

The piece at left is a vase made by Peter Viesnik, signed VIESNIK '80. It was in 1980 that Peter teamed up with the other Peter, Raos, to form the Hot Glass Company that they operated successfully at Devonport until about 1990, when the partners moved on. Much of Peter's (in fact both Peters) early work is not signed, so I was very pleased to come across this in a Whanganui second hand shop in 1995.

I talked about Reg Kempton, New Zealand's first studio glass artist in May 2007, but the piece selected for the NZSAG show is not one I showed then, so here it is. Like all the pieces by Reg that I have seen, this is neither signed nor dated, but it does have the distinctive handwritten paper label that Reg's wife Ellen put on some of his pieces as a marketing tool. Judging from other pieces I have seen my guess is that this was made in the 1970s, though I can't be certain.

And finally, just to get the balance right, here is the piece I am lending by the other Devonport glassie, Peter Raos. This is slightly later, being signed RAOS '83, but it is the earliest signed piece of his I have.

The exhibition should be

well worth seeing, for anyone interested in the history of studio glass in New Zealand, as well as in New Zealand glass artists' current work . It is being held at Essenze Gallery in Parnell Rd, with the opening as part of the NZSAG Conference on Saturday 23 October, and continuing there for public viewing until the following weekend.