Output details

Untitled/ The Ancestor

Brief description: Stewart was invited to participate in an exhibition at Broadfield House Glass Museum. The museum holds an international reputation for having the largest publically accessible collection of Amalric Walter in the world as well as an international collection of historic and contemporary glass. The premise of the exhibition was that participating artists would respond to areas of the museum’s collection, and develop new work from it so by invigorating the contemporary from the knowledge of the past. Stewart showed this work alongside that of Professor Keith Cummings, George F Jackson and Keith Brocklehurst, all of who have international reputations in the world of glassmaking.

Research rationale: Stewart’s work was developed out of a study of one of Walter’s pieces to show various qualities of the creative use of metallic salts in pâte-de-verre. The techniques used were identical to that of Walter, having been unravelled in earlier research by Stewart and then developed upon. In the process of making the piece exhibited Stewart advanced the use of pâte-de-verre on both a technical and aesthetic level. He combined traditional pâte de verre techniques with new glazes for the colouring of glass to achieve a painted sculptural quality through translucency and opacity.

Strategies undertaken: The process to achieve the finished work included several modelling techniques and processes specific to Walter and unique in the history of glass making. Experiments with various metallic salts were conducted first to define what was possible in colouring techniques invented by Stewart and their particular chemistry was allowed to operate in the kiln during the final firing. The specific colours are personal to the artist and his/her way of thinking and show that the palette can be constructed simply from traditional colouring salts.