SUNLIGHT THROUGH WATER 2025

My Creative Process

I love the whole creative journey of my rocky sculptures, from the inspiration to the making!

It starts with a love of the landscape. I want to make pieces which are evocative of the land, sky and sea, contrasting the defined edges of rocky outcrops, waterfalls, tree lines, stone walls, etc, with the softness of adjacent vegetation. The colours echo the surroundings and maybe some rays of sunlight!

So, with this in mind, I plan my composition with tentative sketches, evolving into a design which I follow quite closely. Once happy it’s time to start constructing with glass. I use billets of coloured glass, which I break up into chunks using a glass cutter and a hammer to make pieces to correspond with my drawing; this is my glass paint palette!

I build up the sculpture, looking for strong colour combinations of adjacent blocks – when the glass melts in the kiln, the colours merge, giving a sort of watercolour effect which can be very beautiful. I also want to create a chunky relief

Then it’s into the kiln. The large pieces are heavy to move, up to 14K. I pack a mould mix all around the glass, tight in some places and looser in others so the glass has room to move – suggesting the softness of moss and grasses around the rocks.

Large pieces are in the kiln for 5 days. The glass fully melts at the top temperature of 800C. The kiln is programmed to bring the temperature down slowly and I don’t unload the sculpture until it’s cold so the glass doesn’t crack.

Then the piece is cleaned of the plaster, this is ‘the big reveal’ – has it worked?! Then some cold working on the flat bed grinder and a hand held drill. And finally the piece is photographed.