March Skills Classes
Lamp Working
Skills Class with Ian Pearson
3 – 5 March
Cost: £300 (includes light lunch)
Ian Pearson will lead a three day introduction to the art of lamp working (using gas/oxygen torches to blow, manipulate and join glass tube and rod). You can expect a friendly and informal but hard working atmosphere with the focus on helping you to experiment and develop skills which you can apply in your future work.
Ian has been practicing the skill known as lamp working since 1961, and is an acknowledged master of the craft bringing a mix of outstanding technical knowledge and creative flair. For many years a scientific glass blower creating highly complex laboratory equipment, Ian now uses his blend of ancient craft and modern technology to make art objects and gifts at his studio Glass Creations in Thurso.
This class is suitable for all skill levels and abilities.
Wild Engraving Workshop
Skills Class with Heather Gillespie
23 – 27 March
Cost: £400 (includes light lunch)
This Skills Class moves engraving out of the studio and into the landscape. Using her experience from the Forest of Glass Residency in 2013, Heather will encourage her class participants to take inspiration directly from nature and the local scenery of Lybster and transfer it onto glass by mark making there and then. There will also be the opportunity to experiment with print making direct from your glass samples.
‘Past participants found the whole experience free and expressive. The aim of this class is to encourage us to get out of our comfort zones, experiment, enjoy working outside, and be a part of something unique and special.’ Heather.
No experience necessary
July Master Classes
Stained Glass: The Final Frontier
Master Class with Judith Schaechter
15th - 23th July
Fee: £900 (includes evening meals)
In this course, participants will work with layered flash glass to create one or two panels of stained glass. Various methods of creating imagery on glass, such as painting, sandblasting, engraving and diamond filing will be demonstrated and exploration of alternative options is encouraged. Participants will assemble one or two small panels. This class will also delve into the elusive creative process in the form of discussion.
About Judith Schaechter
Judith Schaechter is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships among others. Her work is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and numerous other collections.
http://www.judithschaechter.com
Glass Unknown: Experimentation and Discoveries in the Hot Shop
Master Class with Maria Bang Espersen and Max Syron
18th - 23th July
Fee: £655 (includes evening meals)
For this 6 day class we will put aside all presumptions we might have about the material glass and approach it in ways one would not have thought possible. We will build up a new understanding of glass by investigating its material possibilities through playful experiments. The process of discovery and learning from the glass itself will be the focal point, rather than an emphasis on final objects. Working in and out of the hot shop, we will let go of traditional glass-making concepts, creating and following new paths of inquiry. We will explore ephemeral, time-based, and performative aspects of glass as well as concepts such as control, value, and experience. This class is open to anyone with a curiosity for the unknown and the willingness to break some glass.
This is an experimental class and we will not be teaching any technical skills. You will however, learn how to gather and handle a small amount of hot glass. For larger amounts, some assistance is available. All levels are welcome but a little experience in hot glass techniques can be beneficial.
About Maria Bang Espersen
Maria Bang Espersen holds a BA from the Royal Danish Academy, Bornholm, Denmark. Prior she completed a three-year technical glass blowing education from Kosta School of Glass in Sweden. She holds numerous awards including the International Glass Prize, 2012 and the Jury’s Special Award at the Coburg Prize 2014. She has attended residency programmes in places such as the Corning Museum of Glass and Wheaton Arts in the USA, S12 Gallery in Norway, and Glazen Huis in Belgium. Espersen works within video, installation, performance and sculpture. Her approach to glass is experimental and playful, as she invents her own techniques rather than following traditions. So far we have seen her explode a hot glass bubble to create fine threads, produce organic shapes in hot glass using only the breath of an apple, and apply taffy making techniques to create a series of sculptures that appear soft when indeed hard.
About Max Syron
Max Syron holds a BFA in sculpture from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. He studied in the glass department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam for 6 months in 2012. His sculptural approach has developed from stationary objects into a mix of installations, performances, and action documentation. Through interactions with materials such as glass, plastic, air, another person, or an empty space, Max explores concepts of the body as one’s personal partition of space, site of perception, and source of freedom. Each interaction is a search for the edge shared by body and world.
http://www.mariabangespersen.com http://maxsyron.com
August Master Classes
Towards purpose – kilnformed glass, cold glass and other stuff…
This class explores the territory between design and making, purpose and process.
Master Class with Angela Thwaites
26 August – 3 September
£900 (includes evening meals)
We will be taking a focussed and purposeful approach using design and making processes to create 3D glass outcomes. As well as material knowledge and skills with glass there will be an emphasis on design development.
The area surrounding Northlands is an important source of departure points for idea generation so we will be going out from the workshops on research journeys.
The class will be led by Angela, supported by a cold working expert, and a designer interested in exploring glass. We will discuss and guide the purpose and development of your projects and you will develop skills and confidence working with specialist glass processes. There will be visits, demonstrations, presentations and group discussions to facilitate your individual ideas and practical exploration.
During the 9 days, there will be an opportunity to experience hot glass through a mutual student swap with the concurrently running hot glass master class led by James Maskrey. There will also be one day midway through when you will be able to make arrangements for further exploring the locality.
You will carry out a range of considered experiments in material and bring one idea to a clear conclusion. We will be working on a modest scale to enable this conclusion to be at a high level of resolution and finish. You will be expected to give a 5 minute visual presentation to introduce yourself to the group within the first couple of days and to show the journey of your project at the end of the class.
Classes run from 9 to 5.30 and participants can work in the studios up until 10pm.
About Angela Thwaites
Angela is an internationally active artist, educator and author. Her artistic practice focuses not only on individual sculptures, but includes commissions and site responsive works. Her first degree was in Ceramics and Glass and in the early 1980’s she was awarded British Council scholarships to study MA in Prague with Professor Stanislav Libensky.
1999-2001 Angela was a researcher at the Royal College of Art working on a project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council focused on refractory mould making for kiln casting glass. As a result of this, Angela was commissioned by A & C Black to write her first book, Mould Making for Glass, published in 2011. The book has led to a variety of international invitations to teach and present including master classes in Turkey, Germany and the Netherlands and conferences in Australia and Southern Ireland
Angela has recently started a PhD study at the University of Sunderland.
Narrating Process
Master Class with James Maskrey
26 August – 3 September
£900 (includes evening meals)
The main aim of this workshop is to cultivate skills and develop narrative for participants’ work. Using our technical abilities, sourced objects, images, or text we will search for meanings in our pieces. These could be imagined, they could be factual, but at the heart of the process will be making and story-telling.
We will concentrate on material, process and idea. Using and developing traditional glass-blowing skills, compiled materials and our combined imaginations we will celebrate these artefacts to spin tales of personal experience, historical fact or elaborate hoax.
We will aim to push ourselves through enriching our glass techniques and developing original ideas to produce pieces of work embracing both skill and narrative.
During the 9 days, there will be an opportunity to experience expert guidance for cold working glass through a mutual student swap with the concurrently running master class led by Angela Thwaites. There will also be one day midway through when you will be able to make arrangements for further exploring the locality.
About James Maskrey
James Maskrey has a career in hot glass spanning over 20 years. He has a BA(hons) in 3D Design from the Surrey Institute of Art and Design and an MA with distinction from the University of Sunderland. As well as being a recognised for his own work, he has also facilitated glass projects for many other artists who have included Richard Slee, Bruce McLean, Magdalene Odundo and William Tillyer.
In his own work, James Maskrey predominantly uses hot glass to create factual and imagined objects that often take the form of individual pieces or collections of curiosities. Inspiration comes from many sources; personal experiences, peculiar facts, elaborate hoaxes and more recently, voyages of discovery, endeavour and exploration all help to inform whilst a passion for both traditional craft skills and innovative new technologies play an important part in the execution of the work.
His work is held in many public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Crafts Council, Northlands Creative Glass, Dan Klein and Alan J.Poole (National Museum of Scotland), Perth Museum and Art Gallery, The Captain Cook Memorial Museum, The Crystallex Collection (Czech Republic) and the Ernsting Stiftung Glass museum (Germany).
Classes run from 9 to 5.30 and participants can work in the studios up until 10pm.
For more information or details on how to apply call Grace on +44 (0) 1593721229 or email grace.macbeath@northlandsglass.com
North Lands Creative Glass
Quatre Bras, Lybster
Caithness, KW3 6BN
SCOTLAND
www.northlandsglass.com
