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Garry Nash

And while he was blowing two other glass blowers turned up - Daffy Yorston and Justin Culina. Justin stayed and assisted Garry for a bit....

Fergus is up and running

The furnace looks OK so far and the glass is excellent quality. Rebecca has been up for blowing twice and Peter Viesnik came up for a day to catch up on orders with the assistance of Justin. Craig and Islay hired the studio last Saturday and created some great work. I have also run a couple of workshops, one for Phoenix and the other for Mervyl and Donna. All three did will really well for first time glass blowers....

Fergus the Furnace has arisen from the dust again

Over the weekend I added two layers of fibre blanket over the 1800 castable and secured it with chicken wire. Today Justin and I added the final layer of lightweight castable to complete the job. Fergus will now be left for a week to dry out....

The Dome is Cast

I have spent much of the last week working on the polystyrene forms for casting the dome in 1800 Shircast. Today Rebecca, Justin, Garry and Diane came and gave me a hand to get this competed. When we left this afternoon the casting was hot and hard....

Demolishion Job

I have been planning to re-build the furnace because the pot was cracked and I was getting a bits of rubbish in the glass. Here are a few photos of the demolition job...

Arts Trail

This is available to all New Zealand artists and , galleries Click here to take a look...

How to blow a shard vase - Photos by Vangie Killalea

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Auckland A&P Easter Show

I received a merit award for my blown and painted piece (the view from our house) and a third prize for a shard vase at the Auckland Easter Show....

Shard Bowls

After a break for 6 months I have some back to making shard bowls and find I can now do a reasonable job of them. Blowing at least 5 days a week over the summer has improved my control and understanding of the process. By keeping everything a bit thicker I don't loose control of the shards as I open up the bowls. Here are a few examples....

View from the Hill

I have been working on this painted piece for a few weeks. Here are photos of it being painted and blown. I will update with a photo of the finished piece soon, blown woith the assistance of my beautiful assistant Diane :-) I had a peek in the annealer today and it looked ok. Looking forward to seeing it the right way up for the first time....

Another succesful workshop

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Glass Blowing Workshop with Christine and Damian

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Richard Golding

Richard runs Station Glass in England - http://www.stationglass.com/Pages/default.aspx He is travelling around New Zealand with Sandra checking out glass blowing studios and seeing a bit of New Zealand as well. Here are a few images of him trying out the Spectrum Premium nuggets I use....

Northland Business Awards

Here is me posing for a photo with my award. I went to a post awards event last Wednesday and discovered I won some radio advertising and Northland TV will make a short movie for me!...

House on the Hill being created

Here I am blowing House on the Hill - with my beautiful assistant Diane. Action photos by John D. Lister - a professional photographer who kindly came to the studio and took a stack photos of me blowing. House on the hill is my latest painted piece of glass and was exhibited at the Pah Homestead in the New Zealand Society of Artist in Glass show. It was bought by Sir James Wallace for the Wallace collection....

Northland Chamber of Commerce Business Innovation awards

Entering the awards was a very useful exercise. The application forms takes you through a review of glass studio business and what I am trying to achieve there. The Visit from the assessors was very helpful with lots of feedback about how to achieve my aims. And winner the award is a bonus...

House on the Hill

House on the hill is my latest painted piece of glass and was exhibited at the Pah Homestead in the New Zealand Society of Artist in Glass show. It was bought by Sir James Wallace for the Wallace collection. Artist statement House on the Hill is a painting of our new house in Whangarei. The House on the Hill is my refuge from the chaos of running the glass studio while also undertaking a full time mentor role for The Learning Connexion. It is five minutes cycle to the studio which is in the ce...