MY LIFE AND MY FLAME – a lampworking journey through inspiration

Part 3

Cooling Down.

I spent thirty-seven years at Dounreay, the first ten were as intense as I have ever felt with an almost non-stop frenzied orgy of creative scientific glass working. Add to the mixture a seemingly endless amount of funding and one can appreciate my joy. To be told after working there a month that I could fly to London to buy a new glass working lathe was to me the best Christmas present ever. Just as well that it was July when I travelled so no snow to close the airports! Uxbridge was my destination, home of Heathways Limited the only UK manufacturer of glass working lathes. I bought an extra-large one and only discovered that when delivered I had to knock a wall down of my workshop for it to fit it in!

I was living (and still do) in Thurso which is situated in Caithness. The County being famous for Caithness Glass. In fact, one of that Company’s glassblowers was interviewed for my job at Dounreay. I think this was a political decision as the two skills maybe complimentary but essentially need almost opposing hand techniques. On entering the workshop and seeing the lampworking equipment with expected results, the candidate panicked, and made a quick exit. The difference between scientific glasswork and that of a furnace worker are worlds apart even though both use the same material.

Six months into my work at Dounreay and I started on the SWRI circuit of orchestrating glass demonstrations. I am sure everyone is familiar with these event where large flames are created to impress an audience before a series of objects are swiftly created. I drew upon my memories of the Science Museum demonstrations by Jim Frost and always tried to dazzle everyone with the “Prince Rupert’s drop. Through promoting the skills of lampworking this way, I came to the attention of a certain Denis Mann. I had heard of the name though the BBC television quiz, “Mastermind” but did not realise he was a professional and well-respected artist who at that time had started dabbling in slumped glass. He was looking for a solution to removing grit which had lodged between several glass surfaces in his sculptures. In my workshop at Dounreay we used an ultrasonic bath which was perfect for removing such pollutants.

Acknowledging my involvement with the BSSG I started reviewing films about glass and writing articles for the BSSG Journal. I was incredibly lucky at Dounreay to have such fantastic facilities which included a 16mm cine projector which I used to watch over one hundred films during the first three years of my employment at Dounreay. My eyes were opened beyond what I perceived to be possible as I gazed in wonder watching scientific glass ware being produced in the 1940’s and 50s.

I also developed a zest for books and magazines about glass and subscribed to “Glass-line” and “The Flow”. It was a pleasure to be able to write several articles for “Glass-Line concerning the crossover between scientific and artistic glassware.

In 1982 I attended by first BSSG Symposium at St Andrews University where I met many scientific glassblowers from universities all over the UK. Several delegates worked either for themselves or commercial companies. One person was Fred Morse of Hampshire R & D Glassware who made glass models and seemed to be always winning BSSG competitions. Fred showed skills in glass working that could be perceived as more attributed to model making as opposed to artistic creativity but that is only a personal view. I could not help but enter and have won several times over the years.

One type of glass product that scientific glassblowers appear to be proficient in is the glass ship in a bottle. Technically it all is supported by the glass seal between the ship and the inner wall of the bottle. A technique that is second nature to lampworkers with a certain level of technical skills. One leading company called Mayflower Glass at its height employed over one hundred lampworkers producing not only ships in bottles but anything else that would satisfy the market. Alas the company is no more but their ships sail on.

Dr Ayako Tani of the National Glass Centre in Sunderland has devoted much of her recent life to studying the phenomena of why and how the various designs of glass ships in bottles developed and who made them. The subject is nicely presented in her book “Vessels of Memory: Glass Ships in Bottles” (ISBN 9781906832346) which I recommend to anyone wishing to appreciate the connection between scientific glassblowing at the artistic interpretations.

The BSSG and Akayo will be combining their resources to hold a special event at Scotland’s Maritime Museum at east Kilbride in September this year where several scientific glassblowers will be demonstrating (including me!) to the public to highlight that science and art are quite content at co-existing.

I first encountered the work of Akako at the 2008 British Glass Biennale where she has been selected every time for the past sixteen years. This exhibition throughout its time has welcomed lampworked glass with perhaps a subconscious acknowledge to the importance of scientific glassblowing. The most direct example was by Peter Layton in 2008 with his exhibit titled, “Scrubber (Container Ethic Series) which comprised of a small laboratory glass rig complete with coils, glass joints and separating funnels. Credit for this construction was attributed to Dixons Glass which of course was my Uncles competitors back in my early glass days!

2008 was a good year at the Glass Biennale for scientific glass influences, notably with the exhibit by Stephen Reveley which consisted of numerous paster pipettes fused and slumped. Reminded me of a time when I had a bad day at the annealing oven! A few Biennales have seen neon well represented and one artist, Julia Malle was at one time the scientific glassblower at Hull University. She has the envied balancing job of managing half her time expressing herself artistically and the remaining half being focused on manufacturing scientific glassware. I see her as a British Sally Prasch, (USA scientific and artistic lampworker – look her work up on Google!).

I was aware of other scientific glass societies in Europe, so it seemed natural for me to volunteer and help in organisation of the first Euro event in 1996. On the committee were representations from Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, and the UK but as I noted nothing from France, yet they have a large school of scientific glassblowing in Paris known as the Lycée Dorian. Every year several students graduate in the subject of scientific glassblowing and seek employment. Currently a few have established themselves within the UK. Twenty students have recently become members of the BSSG. The event in Veldhoven went ahead as scheduled, and I had a fantastic time as did the five hundred other lampworkers. Most seemed to be noticeably young and full of artistic flair in making everything from vases to insects with a wide range of coloured tubing and rod. At the time I was not aware of the huge market in the manufacture of bongs and pipes.

The raw material of the scientific glassblowers is tubing and rod usually borosilicate, but soda-lime and silica can be commonly used. Artistically these objects can be seen as mundane but not so in the hands of an artist. In the 2019 British Glass Biennale Matt Durran constructed what he called a “GlasShack” from lots of borosilicate tubing glued together.

My first visit to “Flame-Off” at Towcester racecourse was a revelation. Organised by Martin Tufnell of Tuffnell Glass the event saw hundreds of lampworkers converge on the venue to try their hand at different burners and get free advice on working with glass rods and tubes. Interesting to note that Martin’s Dad Bill was a scientific glassblower who worked at Hull University. The ever-strong link is never too far away! Most people attending Flame Off appeared to me to be part-time beadmakers so it must have been a surprise for them to see my style of working with borosilicate après mandrel! I was joined by a couple of other scientific glassblowers who had stumbled across the event and we soon learnt the nickname the “Boro-boys. I was privileged to be invited to the next event to do a demonstration and the following year Martin was keen for several scientific glassblowers to put on a show complete with lathe. Unfortunately, we probably used to much propane and oxygen in cylinders to make any future engagements financially viable, but I live in hope.

Re-iginition.

An excellent opportunity for me came through a sad event. The glass artist Carrie Fertig who I had met previously via the British Glass Biennale and through her lampworked sheep fame was due to teach a short lampworking course at Northlands Creative but had to return suddenly to her home in the USA due to a family bereavement. As I lived just down the road from Northlands in Lybster on the East coast of Caithness then I was the obvious choice as a replacement. Incidentally Carrie references scientific glass working in her CV as she was taught several scientific glass working techniques by Stuart Johnstone who is the scientific glassblower at Edinburgh University. It seems the links between artistic lampworking and scientific glass working cannot be broken!

I was aware of the activities of Northlands having previously met Paul Stankard there when he was teaching. In fact, I interviewed him for the BSSG Journal. What fascinated me about him was his history as a scientific glassblower which of course he gave up in preference to paperweight making. Another ex-scientific glassblower is Colin Reid, famous for his kiln cast glass art and again I met him at Northlands. In fact, over the last 15 years I have demonstrated and taught lampworking for many students. In addition, I have worked with several artists who may be experienced with furnace work or slumping but when it comes to lamp work then their limitations restrict their creativity which is where I can help. One artist paid me to make hundreds of bulbs all week only to take them out into the courtyard to smash with a hammer. Such is art and an action which would horrify most scientific glassblowers and perhaps their lies part of the challenge as translating the technical side of lampworking to the more expressive.

One of the founders of Northlands was Dan Klein and I invited Dan to speak to delegates at the 2005 BSSG Symposium in Liverpool. At the end of his presentation Dan was asked for his views on scientific glassblowers making artistic lampworked glassware. Dan replied that what scientific glassblowers in this respect is not art! You could hear a pin drop as the audience of over seventy scientific glassblowers form across the UK drew breath and digested this radical thought. I will always remember what Dan said to me when I complained about a photograph of a lampworked sculpture in his book “Glass, a Contemporary Art”, (ISBN 0004122283). The glass object by Matteo Thun had a crack, and I could not understand how he would allow such a substandard looking piece of glass to be included in a book full of wonderous glass. “Ian”, Dan said, “bad craftmanship does mean bad art”! Enough said and That will do nicely I thought. It is a problem that I have noted with scientific glassblowers that we seem to be more concerned on how a piece of glass is made rather than why or what message is the item trying to tell us?

Two artists who have embraced scientific glassware and have demonstrated an eager involvement in learning more about scientific glass working techniques are Emma Hislop and Siobhan Healy. Siobhan, nattyglass.com has utilised borosilicate flasks more familiar to chemistry scenarios for her “Apothecary” project and worked alongside glassblowers from Glasgow and Edinburgh Universities as well as the Scottish Universities Environment Research Centre in East Kilbride. Emma’s works includes glassware which in appearance would not look out of place in a laboratory such as her installation Ecologus emmahislop.co.uk

One of the founding members of the Scottish Glass Society was Frits Ackerboom who was the scientific glassblower at St Andrews University. Frits came to me attention through his “hobby” away from the lab as he enthusiastically created abstract glass sculptures. Although mostly clear Frits did introduce colour which at the time was revolutionary in the borosilicate world. Making coloured borosilicate was commercialised successfully in Scotland by Tom Young MBE whose own company Village Glass made many lampworked artistic ornaments and a few functional pieces such as perfume bottles.

Perhaps the most famous items when one talks about functional glass art are those with labels such as “bongs” or “pipes” The DVD “Degenerate Art – The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes”” really sums up the subject well and is an excellent record of the culture that surrounds this type of glass art. It must be art as the Corning Museum exhibited one bong or pipe in its New Glass Now exhibition that I was lucky enough to visit. The artist David Colton will go down in history as perhaps bring this so-called underground glass art to mainstream.

Still Burning Bright.

The future for me as a lampworker with a foot in each camp of scientific and artistic is assured but then the market is shrinking.

The year 2022 will be an important one for scientific glass as the German Society of Scientific Glassblowers (VDG) will be celebrating fifty years of existence and the British Society will be belatedly celebrating sixty years. The plan is to link two symposiums in two Countries with a bus trip open to all scientific glassblowers across the World. A similar event occurred in 2018 in Switzerland and covered many scientific glass establishments in Europe.

Recommended Reading

For those wishing to learn more about scientific and artistic glassblowing then the following titles should be of great interest. I have excluded those referred to previously.

Laboratory Scientific Glassblowing – A Practical Training Method – Paul Le Pinnet. ISBN97817863411976

Spark the Creative Flame – Paul Stankard ISBN 9781935778233

Kunst aus der Flamme – Von Heidi Hohn und Andre Gutgesell ISBN9783000449642 (in German)

Pipe Classic No 7 – Salt. ISBN 9780578127774

Creative Glassblowing. Scientific and Ornamental – James Hammesfahr & Clair Strong. ISBN 0716700883

Glassblowing, An Introduction to Solid and Blown Glass Sculpturing – Homer L Hoyt ISBN096244040X

Advanced Flameworking Vol 1 – Milon Townsend ISBN 0970893914

Frabel, Excellence in Glass Art – Frabel ISBN 9781933989204

Paul J Stankard – Ulysses Grant Dietz ISBN 9780810944732

The Penland Book of Glass ISBN9781600591860

Flameworking – Frederic Schuler ISBN0273315072

Glass, Hand-blown, Philosophy & Method – John Burton Library of Congress Catalogue Card 67-28894

Formed of Fire – Bandhu S. Dunham ISBN 0965897222

There are surprisingly many more titles relating to lampworking although it can be confusing for the reader when authors mix up the terms, “Flameworking”, Lampworking” and “Glassblowing”.