FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING

I have made lots of glass figures or human shaped things in the last thirty-two years. It started when I was asked to make some golfers and fishermen using glass rod. I then moved onto making various other sports but then decided to branch out and just make figures in any position. Sometimes I just had fun making figures in impossible positions. You can do this if you’re an artist. It is your right to distort as much as it is to recreate. Obviously if someone asks for a rifleman laying down ready to shoot then they don’t want a footballer.

Real fun comes when trying to make some person that resembles a particular style. I was asked to make a fifteen year old boy and found by changing the hair style then the years either fell off or were added on at an alarming rate. If I am making figures with glass rod then it can become tricky to avoid stresses and cracks. When things go wrong then glass hair can literary fall off and take half the face with it!

I avoided adding features to the heads of my earlier attempts at figures as felt I could replicate real life. Who wants life reproduced anyway? I would rather evolve with a style and that style involved using blank heads on the pretence that they are works of art and minimalism is the way to go. I realise that now but still believe most of my figures would benefit from have details removed from their heads. That could reflect real life I suppose!

I have made couple dancing, mating and performing other rituals. Wedding couples have been popular but for some reasons my brides always look a bit like Queen Victoria. I have made men in kilts and without. Naked or fully dressed it doesn’t really matter as the techniques are mostly the same. Start with a body by flattening a piece of glass rod. Shape the head and switch hands to work on the legs. Crotches always catch me out and if the glass is not fused together a crack appears where a crack should not . Finish off with a couple of arms and job done. Sounds easy but of course it isn’t.

For larger human shapes, say over 6 inches high then I prefer using glass tubing. This has the advantage of being able to seal object in side. For a politician I made a clear glass figure with a £ sign where the heart should have been. For a nuclear scientist I made a figure and for the head made a spherical shape of a nuclear reactor. Funny thing was he hated the end result as he presumes, I was taking the micky out of him.

Another advantage of glass figures is that they can be filled with liquid such as alcohol and have made a few stag party gifts using a simple shaping which allows the vessel to be filled and as far as stag nights go the more vital aspect of emptying. I just make a hole somewhere in the body and add a small stopcock or cork. I have done the same for hen nights but their demands require a different mindset.

One sculpture I made of a glass figure emerging from a coffin. I stuffed the figure full of scientific glassware drawings which had been reduced on a photocopier to 1%. The idea was that this represents the fall and rise of scientific glassblowing. I may have got that view the wrong way around. Only time will tell.

Figures are mostly standing as I find that the most effective. Sitting figures throw up the challenge of also having to make something of interest to sit on and yep have made figures on toilets. I suppose you could say my glass figures on crucifixes are similar in that the glass working technique shares similar skill requirements. At the end of the day that’s what glass figures. Just a few glass techniques fused together.

My proudest moment of figure making as yet to see the final performance. To celebrate my thirty years of being the owner of Glass Creations I made thirty couple joined together in certain positions. It was all about being connected. One day I want to display then either in an exhibition or a restaurant that has meaning to me.

Sometimes making figures is a means to an end and I use the completed figures in a different setting. I made a glass church from joining many small glass figures together to make the outline of a church. I titled this work 2Church of the People” as that’s what all churches should be. Took me ages to sell but eventually a buyer was found.

I am currently working on a collection of figures called “Mrs Men.” I am hoping to make seventy this year, all in different positions. I have already made Mrs Spike and Polly Titian (politician). The latter was just an outline of a figure with nothing substantial inside. Hence the title. More on the subject as time goes on.