A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to spend a week at the very top of Scotland. This was no relaxing holiday, but a five day hotshop master class lead by James Maskrey who along with being an artist in his own right, is the hot glass technician at the University of Sunderland. He is very much the "go-to guy" for any hot glass-related queries and general incomprehension. Just give him a vision and he can make it real!
We started our week by visiting some of the local scenery. The small village of Lybster has very few modern amenities, but its rural location offers some spectacular natural and historic sites. Unfortunately, these visits fell on a very wet and slippery day, leading to three out of the seven of us falling over. Despite slightly bruised behinds, we still enjoyed our day seeing locations such as the Wallagoe Steps and others that I could not spell or pronounce.
We started our week by visiting some of the local scenery. The small village of Lybster has very few modern amenities, but its rural location offers some spectacular natural and historic sites. Unfortunately, these visits fell on a very wet and slippery day, leading to three out of the seven of us falling over. Despite slightly bruised behinds, we still enjoyed our day seeing locations such as the Wallagoe Steps and others that I could not spell or pronounce.
The following five days gave us all a reasonable idea of what to expect if we were ever to be employed to make hot glass products. Working from 9am until roughly 7pm every day, it is fair to say we were pretty knackered. It was also interesting to work in a hotshop that we were not used to, particularly as we were allowed to play music and access the impressive air conditioning system (opening the large red doors). The Northlands hotshop was also unique in that it snowed through the roof and into the room! Jim had set us certain projects which we had to complete within the week, such as making an object which is inspired by a specific person in the group and one inspired by a local object. These could either be stand alone objects, or incorporated into the techniques we were to practice during the week. The techniques we covered included overlay, murrini, cane and roll up. Of these techniques, I think my favourite and one which I have continued to experiment with is murrini. This involves constructing a solid glass piece which is built up in layers with different colours, then stretched to make it long and thin. Once it has been annealed, it is sliced up on the diamond saw to create a series of tiles which can then be reheated and used as an intricate pattern.
The frustrating thing about the timing of our week at Northlands was that it was the week before our Easter break. We spent a week getting all inspired and coming up with ideas, then couldn't go back to uni for three weeks! Luckily we remembered a majority of them and have managed to put most of them into practice since our week away.