A glass hand-grenade, a model of a futuristic apartment-block and glass wind instruments all feature in a new Crafts Council touring exhibition; Breath Taking: Revealing a new wave in British glass blowing.
Breath Taking presents blown glass work by 22 UK makers, including 17 new commissions and five exemplary pieces from the Crafts Council Collection. The selected makers all illustrate a contemporary and lyrical approach to this age-old process through the presentation of exciting new works, many of which are conceptual and non-functional forms that breathe new life into a traditional practice.
The works on display are all created by virtue of the interaction of human breath and hot glass. The breath that has created these new works resonates in the themes and concepts it explores. It continues to animate them even once the original breath has dissipated. Using this sense of breath as a starting point, life, death, sound and movement are considered and manifested in objects as fascinating and unexpected as a glass trombone, hand-grenade and an apartment designed for futuristic living.
This exhibition is timely in a climate that has seen a reduction in the formal learning opportunities to discover the art of hot glass-blowing. There are challenges for makers in running a studio furnace due to rising fuel prices and an increased responsibility and awareness of the environmental impact and carbon footprint of the process. However, there is a burgeoning wave of makers who, whilst cognisant of these issues, are passionate about the process and desirous to develop new work.
The works on show are produced by employing traditional and historical techniques that are over 5000 years old. However, it is the contemporary variation developed from these traditional processes, combined with intellectual and creative inspiration, that is new and has the power to excite, to question and to challenge and together present the new wave in British glassblowing.
The exhibition will be shown at Callendar House, Falkirk on May 7 2011 and runs until 2 July 2011.
Visit http://breath-taking.org.uk/ for more information.
