WAKE UP TO MAKE UP

Nope, not talking about apply mascara but applying my creative spirit based on waking up to fine weather. For photographing glass in the open air then for me “fine weather” means no wind. This in Caithness is difficult to guarantee all the time so hence when I look at the weather I can instantly see if it’s good to take photos outside of my glass art. Recently I am enjoying positioning different sculptures in situations that one wouldn’t normally expect to see such as virus baubles in a bird feeder! The other aspect I like is taking two or more different sculptures which I have made at various times of my career and position them adjacent to each other to see if there is a connection and usually a link can be made and if not then I make it up! Thankfully, I work with a material that never seems to age which means my glass sculptures that were made several years ago still look as fresh and clean today as they did when I first made them. I think my oldest sculpture can be dated back to 1976 when I was working in Manchester and even then, I was having fun playing with glass in my father and Mother-in-Laws Garden. They had a pond with a waterfall so I thought it would be a good idea to photograph glass in the middle of the waterfall and sure enough the glass shone in the sun particularly when wet. I did fall in of course but it was all in the name of art.

I still have a fondness for glass and water and what with my studio being located on the edge of the Thurso River have no reason not to photograph my glass on the riverbank. Making hollow glass sculptures has the advantage of enabling the object to float but to date I have not tried floats glass across the river, but I am sure my time will come.

As mentioned previously the enemy for me of natural elements is wind as this causes challenges in knocking over glass towers of imagination. I can cope with cold (just), heat, rain, hail, and snow. The latter is an attraction in that snow and ice can look like glass or should that be glass can look like ice? Over the years of running around parks, gardens, and various aspects of the countryside I have yet to ““lose”” any glass items or even had severe damage occur. Strange that a lot of people think glass is fragile yet if made well (that’s my job!) then it can be as robust as any material. Having witness cast iron brackets crack when tightened around glass pipes then I can testify to the strength of glass. I sometimes wish I was as strong as glass but bend me and I will break!!