The Network London’s Ivy Restaurant has long been a haunt for artists, actors and authors and has formed a collection of art works that are rotated throughout the owner’s seven other establishments. When the Private Dining Room was being renovated I was commissioned to make a new work. The Network is a ceiling installation of 45 large pieces of hand blown glass, some with internal illumination. Each sphere with a light, like a major star at the Ivy, was connected to slightly smaller pieces creating a linked network of glass and black rope. Each piece is unique and special in its own way, and like the restaurant’s clientele, some are bigger and brighter than others. The pieces are coloured to match the original distinctive glass diamonds that form the Ivy’s windows. The Network diagrams social interaction; one is linked to others by degrees of separation, and as Hub theory predicts, there will always be those individuals, websites, cells in the body or any other network which will act as bottlenecks and distribution points for information.
Page 72/73: The Network, 2009, 45 glass beads, rope, dimensions variable, view of the entrance to the room from the bar Page 74: The Network, view from the entrance into the bar Page 75: The Network, view of the dining area Glass hot work: Ian Hankey, cold work: Teign Valley Glass Studios 72