FLYING HIGH BUT NOT HIGH ENOUGH!

I hate seagulls. They make horrible noises, poo everywhere and tap dance on my bathroom roof. They dive bomb me in my garden and are so brazen they try to out stare everyone. I was told they hate crows, so I made a glass one and the seagulls just laughed. I was going to make a glass machine gun that fired glass bullets to knock them off their high horse but knew they would see right through this idea.

I have made many glass birds in my time but never a complete seagull. I made lots of glass seagull wings and used them in a crown which went on Jesus’s head as part of an installation. The crown was a development form the crown of thorns and to make it local I replaced thorns with seagull wings. Both can be prickly!

Not sure if many would call a stork a bird. Well, it has wings and flies but then so does an aeroplane and that’s not a bird. I have made hundreds of storks. All for presents to celebrate births. Sometimes with blue babies and sometimes with pink. Once or twice with a blue and pink bay for twins. A few times no colour on the bay as the gift was given before the bay was born. I thought this made luck. Once I was asked to make a stork with no bay for someone who had a miscarriage which I thought weird. Money is money as a cynic would say but I tend to disagree.

Going back to crows and my glass versions then they appeared to look like blackbirds. Of course, they are. They are black and they are birds, but they are not black birds. I make clear black birds which sounds like a contradiction but its as clear as a blackbird that underneath all black birds is a clear glass bird trying to escape.

Love making glass robins. They are so obviously robins with their red breast that no one can mistake them. I have tried making clear robins, but they look like sparrows.

My latest bird influenced project is falcon heads. This is for a customer who make shoods for falcons to be used when training the birds. I was told female falcon heads are smaller than males so had to make the difference in sizes prominent. The glass had to take the hoods which were made from leather. Obviously, I couldn’t try the hood on hot glass so measurements had to be vitally accurate. Finished objects look good and secret is the keeping the hollow glass hot with thick walls which allowed me to sculpt the shape into the desired appearance.