Early Glass by Peter Viesnik

Recently a piece was offered on TradeMe that seemed on first indications to be one of the first pieces of glass made by Peter Viesnik at Albany in 1978. 

Discussion with Peter, and his inspection of the piece indicated that it was not an Albany piece, but was probably made by him about 1982, in the second year of his working with Peter Raos at the Hot Glass Company at Devonport. There, unlike Albany, the glass was batched but at that early stage they were batching one colour at a time, like this blue, rather than clear. The pattern on each face is the chill mark from the marver, used to slightly 'square' the round form.

Peter Viesnik c. 1982 - Park collection

This discussion led to an interview with Peter about his beginnings in glass. He gave me a great morning, during which I learnt a lot, and also got to see two pieces that were made at Albany in 1978, which Peter still has.   

Peter was born in the UK, and as a young man travelled quite a bit, both on his National Service in the Royal Air Force, working on ski fields in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA, and a stint in Sydney in property management. He also spent three years in India studying Vedanta and Buddhist philosophy. Back in the UK teaching yoga, in 1974 he met a New Zealander, Helen, and they came to her home town of Tauranga together to have their first daughter. Peter opened and ran a natural foods restaurant in Tauranga for three years. However, he was keen to pursue a creative occupation. A Swiss friend in Auckland suggested glass-blowing, so he went to see Mel Simpson at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland. Mel was dismissive of Peter as being too old to start - Peter was then about 40.  

Reg Kempton blowing glass 1978 - Bruce Given photo

Not one to be easily put off, Peter decided to sell the restaurant and tour New Zealand looking for ideas and information. Peter and Helen and their two girls set off in their VW bus. In Havelock they went to see Reg Kempton. Like Mel, Reg told Peter he was too old to begin a career in glass, which was something you needed to begin in your youth. Undaunted they went on to Hokitika, where he saw Ove Janson blowing glass and immediately decided “yes, that’s what I want to do!”  So Peter went back to Auckland to set up a glass studio. He visited Mel Simpson for guidance, and also went to see Tony Kuepfer, with a tape measure to measure up Tony’s facilities. 

Once Mel realised that Peter was serious about glass he suggested he go and visit Keith Mahy. Peter visited Keith in his cowshed at Otonga, north of Whāngārei, where he saw him blowing. Keith wanted to go off and have some breakfast, so he said to Peter “have a go”, which Peter did, his first hot glass experience. Peter found Keith inspiring and saw that he clearly enjoyed what he was doing very much. Peter located a place in Albany, with a shed at the back. There in 1979 he spent a year of what he calls painful effort, learning to build glass blowing equipment, with the skillful engineering assistance of his Swiss friend, Greg Abbott, an immensely practical person who could turn his hand to engineering anything, though he had no knowledge of glass. Peter did the research into what was needed and employed Abbott to help build the furnace etc.

One invaluable source, his Bible Peter said, was Frank Kulasiewicz’s book ‘Glassblowing’ (1974). Peter thought that all the early glass makers New Zealand made considerable use of this book. Indeed, it must have sold very many copies world wide, since I had no trouble buying one quite cheaply on the Internet - it's fascinating to see what was being made in the 1970s, some of which clearly served as inspiration to several new Zealand artists.

Peter Viesnik glass, Albany 1978 - Viesnik collection

At Albany Peter was fluxing bottle glass, rather than batching glass from sand. He had a couple of sessions but ran out of money – he described it as being the absolute Viesnik folly, a glass studio which he had built but couldn’t even afford to run.  

However, he did make a number of pieces, and even sold a few at a craft fair in Albany, after the woman who was organising the fair said she liked his work and would like to be able to sell it. Peter was very surprised that somebody would want to buy his pieces.

Peter Viesnik glass, Albany 1978 - Viesnik collection

At this stage Peter Raos got in contact, having been put in touch by Mel Simpson. Mel would organise a grant from AHI to establish a glass studio if they could find premises. Peter Raos didn’t want to move to Albany, so Peter Viesnik undertook to try to find premises in Auckland. Driving around, he saw that the building on the corner of Church St and King Edward Parade in Devonport was for lease.

Peter Viesnik worked as a wine waiter while he and Peter Raos were setting up the studio. They had to line the space with Gib board, which neither of them had done before, but their rather amateur efforts were assisted by the council building inspector choosing not to look too closely. Given that the adjacent space, occupied by a craft furniture maker, was partitioned off with recycled wooden doors meant they were very lucky that the heat of the kiln and the sawdust laden atmosphere next door didn’t lead to a fire.

However, once they were set up the two Peters established ‘The Hot Glass Company’, and the rest is history.

With thanks to Peter Viesnik for sharing his story so willingly.

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.

Recent Mel Simpson Acquisitions

Mel Simpson was one of the pioneers of studio glass in New Zealand, and one of the founders of the NZ Society Artists of in Glass (1980), which continues today as the national glass artists' organisation in NZ.

Mel learnt his glass-blowing in the USA at UCLA (1975), having gone to the US to do a post-graduate design degree (Illinois 1974), but he discovered glass while he was there. His first degree was BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland (1971) and he returned to Elam to teach. He established the glass facilities there with a QEII grant in 1978. Ann Robinson, Garry Nash, Peter Raos and others were all students of his there. He received two further QEII awards in 1981 and 1983, and exhibited widely in NZ and overseas between 1980 and 1993.

I was pleased to acquire this piece of Mel's on TradeMe recently. It is signed MEL SIMPSON 1979, making it one of the earlier pieces of his that I have. It's a thick walled, heavy circular vase, with an integral 'saucer' shape at the base. Underneath it has had quite a bit of grinding to make it sit smoothly. Because it is so thick, it's hard to determine the colour of the glass, but it's probably dark blue rather than black. The surface has been lightly iridised.
It is 14.5cm high.
 
I don't think it is one of his best pieces.

However, Mel persisted with the general idea of trailed decoration on the outside of an iridised vessel, making this very much more successful rectangular box in 1984. While still quite heavy, it is lighter and thinner walled, and the base grinding is better handled.  The whole body is iridised, except for the rim, which has been left plain.  It is signed M S 84, and is 13.5cm high.

I bought this on TradeMe as well, and I was especially pleased with it because it is so well provenanced. The parents of the person selling it had bought it at the 1984 Philips Studio Glass Award exhibition at Auckland Museum. Even better,they had retained the catalogue showing the piece and that was included in the Trademe auction.It was number 37 in the catalogue, and cost them $90, rather less than I paid for it, but I was very pleased to get such a well provenanced piece. It is described in the catalogue as "Blue Box (fumed)", and is one of the pieces selected to be illustrated in the catalogue. To have an illustrated catalogue was quite sophisticated at the time, but sadly the small monochrome images don't do justice to the pieces shown.

Keith Mahy - one of the pioneers

Photo: Stephen Robinson

I have been saddened to learn of the death in Whangarei of Keith Mahy, on Friday 14 June 2013. Keith was the first New Zealand born studio glass artist (I think only English Reg Kempton and American Tony Kuepfer predate him in New Zealand). But Keith's involvement with glass began well before he set up his studio in that former cow shed at Otonga, between Hikurangi and Whakapara in Northland in 1976.  

Keith was born in Whakatane in 1947 and studied sculpture and design at the Elam School of Fine Arts at Auckland University, graduating with a Diploma in Fine Arts in 1969. He won the New Zealand Manufacturers Association Student Design award in 1967, and on completing his studies worked in packaging design in Auckland. In 1970 he was appointed Design Director at Crown Crystal Glass in Christchurch. Keith designed many of the successful ranges of glassware produced by Crown Crystal Glass, including Anker which won a Designmark award in 1970 and Aragon, Designmark 1971.

But designing glass for others to make wasn't enough for Keith, so in 1975 he left Crown Crystal to set up his own studio at Otonga. He built his own wood burning gas kiln, and made his own moulds out of pear wood.

 

I don't think Keith signed any of his early work, so identifying pieces is not easy, but I think these are examples of his glass from that time. The manaia-like handle terminals were a distinctive feature of his work.

In 1982, the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council provided Keith with a grant to equip his new studio at Paparoa, and this enabled him to improve the quality of his glass. He exhibited in the Philips Studio Glass Award exhibitions at Auckland Museum in 1984, when he received a Merit Award (highly commended), and in 1985 and 1986.

Merit Award 1984 Philips Studio Glass

1985 Philips Studio Glass

In the 1986 Philips

catalogue, he wrote: "Living in the country on a historic Maori Pa site on the Pahi Peninsula which juts into the North Kaipara harbour, has prompted me to install my own wood gas plant to utilise local resources and to cope with the high energy demands of melting glass in a furnace. 

1986 Philips Studio Glass

This, combined with working in an environment surrounded by trees, farmland, and ever changing tidal inlets, as well as the exciting properties of hot glass, like transparency, reflection, refraction, colour and its particular spontaneity, are the main influences on my work at present."

In 1986, in the developing environment of craft education in New Zealand, Keith became a part time tutor in Glass and Design at Northland Polytechnic in Whāngārei. A QEII grant was made in 1988 to extend the studio at the Polytech, and Keith taught glass there for a number of years, until the facility became a casualty of the reforms in craft education which undid the previous good work. Quite a number of present day glass artists learned or enhanced their skills under Keith's guidance.

An exhibition piece from the late 1980s

One of those was glass caster Shona Firman with whom Keith established both a life partnership and from 1995 'Burning Issues' studio and gallery in the Whangarei Town basin, to which they were able to relocate completely once the Polytechnic closed.

2001 example of Keith's 'shard' vases

In 1997, Keith and others developed the Beachcomber Glass Studio in Rarotonga, followed in 1999 by a training course there for young potential Rarotongan glass artists

2002 cage glass perfume bottle

2003 feathered perfume bottle

   

One of Keith's most recent colleagues, Rebecca Heap, posted this photo on Facebook on 16 June, with the note: "This afternoon we emptied the pot and turned off the heart beat at Mahy Glass amidst lots of fire and steam. With family and friends present it was the saddest shut down I have ever done." 

Keith Mahy was one of the pioneers of studio glass in New Zealand.  His passion for glass, his teaching and mentoring of others, his creativity in his own glass work and above all his friendly nature will be sadly missed.

Seal Island Continued the West Coast Tradition

I have posted a couple of blogs about Avalon Glass, the pioneering and quite individual glassworks at Fox River on the South Island West Coast. Several partnerships, both personal and artistic developed and changed there over time. 

This small jug (10cm high) is signed Braid '99 NZ

One outcome after Avalon Glass itself had closed, or was nearing its close, was the Seal Island studio established by Ross Smith and Lynda Braid. Ross Smith was one of the founders of the Avalon Studio in 1985 with Lawson Bracewell and Greg Smith, joined subsequently by Robert Reedy 6 months later and then Roger Thompson. Lynda joined Ross at Avalon in 1993, and in 1996 after Avalon closed they formed Seal Island Studio, named after a small island (uninhabited, at least by humans) just west of the mouth of the Fox River.  

Signed Seal Island 1999 Aotearoa NZ (L) Seal Island NZ 2002 (R)

Between 1993 and 1995 Ross was the owner of the Avalon works, which he leased to Greg Smith and Robert Reedy when they were working there. Greg has told me that he never worked with Lynda, so it is currently a little unclear whether Avalon and Seal Island were physically separate, or were different names for the products of the same place.

Signed Braid '99 NZ

 Signed Braid Seal Island 2000 (9 cm high)

Scent bottle by Ross Smith signed Seal Island RS '98 Aotearoa NZ

Some of the Seal Island pieces are signed with that name and some with the artist's name. After the partnership broke up, it seems that Lynda went on working at the studio on her own for a period, though it has now closed. A jug sold recently on TradeMe (594745225) signed Seal Island NZ Braid 05, so Lynda was still at Seal Island in 2005