The
Festival of Glass is delighted to introduce its first Artist in Residence - glass
artist Mark Eliott. Mark will run two sculptural glass workshops at the 2015
Festival of Glass:
·
One-day
workshop: Monday 16th February
A short introduction to flame-work. We will
use rods of clear and coloured borosilicate glass to make abstract forms,
pendants and an animal; and we will also blow a bubble with a glass tube. The
class is suitable for beginners, but experienced students will be given more
advanced projects.
·
Three-day
workshop: Tuesday 17th to Thursday 19th February.
An introduction to glass
sculpting. We will use rods of clear and coloured borosilicate glass and
blowing with hollow tubing to make glass ornaments such as figurines, animals,
vessels, pendants and abstract sculptures. The class is suitable for beginners,
but experienced students will be given more advanced projects.
Bookings
are essential: markeliottglass@gmail.com
Introducing Mark Eliott
Mark
Eliott was born in New Zealand but grew up in Sydney, where he now lives. His
primary medium is flame-worked borosilicate glass (pyrex), which is stronger
and less likely to crack when the temperature changes; and his work is inspired
by – among other things - plants, animals, marine organisms and people.
As a
teenager, Mark delighted in digging up old bottles and this led to an informal
apprenticeship at the Minson scientific glass company. Subsequently, he had various
jobs, played saxophone in numerous bands and studied Jazz at Sydney’s
conservatorium. He returned to the world of glass but continues to play music
and incorporates other media into his work.
In
2010, Mark collaborated with animator Jack MacGrath to produce Dr Mermaid
and the Above Marine - a
6-minute animated video about a marine biologist who communicates with fish.
In April 2012, Mark and Jack collaborated again in a
workshop at
Waverley
Woollahra Arts School, Bondi, in which participants made improvised forms from
flame-worked glass. (“Glass Flame-ation Bondi – the workshop.” [Jack
McGrath]
http://vimeo.com/49953912)
Mark’s
continuing “Music in Glass” project brings together two of the main creative
streams of his life. The project draws on his experience of synaesthesia in
which sound is simultaneously perceived as colours, forms and textures. Mark
has described the experience as follows:
“One piece of music may appear as a monotone wash of grey or
brown while another might appear as a broad landscape full of strange forms
such as fuzzy red-brown blobs for base notes and banks of stratified patterns
for piano accompaniment with shifting tonal colours according to the chordal
movement. A saxophone solo may appear as a jagged streak of yellow-blue
lightening or a curvaceous meandering form in deep gold, red and purple.”
