The piece I have in the RUA this year is within the Craft NI curated collection. It is a small flameworked glass piece that takes the form of a Mermaid's purse, entwined within a cluster of seaweed, as if it has been found washed up on the shore line.
I live on the North Antrim coast just inland of Ballintoy and I spend a lot of time exploring the strandline between Dunseverick and Ballintoy harbour. The work I make relates directly to my daily encounter with nature and being present in the natural world.
Living and working in this remote rural location, allows for the coast line to become a constant presence and become central to my process of making. I feel a deep sense of connection, walking the strandline, tracing the tides and experiencing the light change when beside water. This place of chaos, constant change, markers of time and shifting sands provides me with an endless source of fascination and inspiration.
Back in the studio, my environment becomes a library of observations. Findings that I have gathered from the strandline become organised, grouped and curated on my studio walls and windowsills. This becomes a starting point for material investigations, transform my observations into artworks by sculpting glass in an open flame.
My fascination with glass mirrors what draws me to nature. Working with the glass in the flame, the material is constantly subject to the effects of heat and gravity. Timing and intuition become my guiding forces. It's a very meditative experience and a solitary act, allowing me to become lost in the process. I liken it to drawing, only my media is molten glass and I am drawing three dimensionally in space.
I do not consider my pieces as being scientifically accurate copies or replicas of the specimens I find. More so, I am striving to capture an essence of truth and imbue a narrative within the work, whilst exploiting the qualities inherent in the material which is glass. Fluidity, transparency, fragility and light all work together to define the character and create the ephemeral nature of my work.