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Right: Two pieces from Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert, both produced in free hand blown using the filigrane technique. The golden brown and orange of the Molten pendant (2012) and the floating forms of Clouds (2012).
FREDRIK NIELSEN
Pic: Petr Krejci
Fredrik Nielsen runs The Glass Factory studio in Boda, host to the most recent Glass Is Tomorrow workshop. For this wall piece, a free-blown, silvered glass shape was created, before being coated with clear car paint for added strength and then sawn in half with a hedge strimmer. “It’s very violent, the way I do my stuff,” explains Nielsen. www.theglassfactory.se Pic: Petr Krejci
Pic: Jeremy Josselin, courtesy of Galerie Caarole Decombe
JEREMY MAXWELL WINTREBERT
PIA WÜSTENBERG Pia Wüstenberg’s Glass Lights (pictured) are made from the excess glass cuttings from her Stacking Vessel objects. Each glass element is unique and topped with colourful processed paper beads. “Why do I like working with glass? Because it is a magical material,” she says. “As an outcome it is the most colour intense and pure material I know. I love combining glass with other materials to create contrast and highlight the qualities in the glass.” www.piadesign.eu
Jeremy Maxwell Wintrebert was 18 when he first experienced the glass blowing process first hand. The young artist was instantly won over by the mysterious dance of molten glass as it was coaxed into shape and resolved to learn as much as he could about the skills and techniques involved. “Working with hot molten glass at the end of a blow pipe is a very exciting way to express yourself as an artist,” he explains. “The material is incredibly dangerous, sensual and sensitive. It is almost alive.” Born in Paris and raised on the west coast of Africa, Wintrebert has spent most of his adult life split between the US and France. In between he has travelled to glass studios and production shops both in America and across Europe – in particularly to Murano Italy and the Czech Republic – learning his craft. “There are many constraints working with hot blown glass,” he says. “It is technically the most challenging way to work the material. There are many parameters; its science is very abstract and the only way to attain this knowledge is through word of mouth or imitation of the movements. It is like decrypting an ancient language. It is so complex that most people are never truly able to tap into its real creative potential. But of course once you explore and accept all of the constraints you are then free. The dialogue becomes fluid and therefore incredibly rich.”
Wintrebert draws on many Venetian techniques like encalmo and filigrane work, but also develops his own style and processes. Crucially, his work is always entirely free blown, avoiding the use of blow molds completely. “It’s a very important detail,” he says. “In a blow mold you are creating a volume by constraining it, whereas for free hand blown glass you are creating a volume freely around an axis. These are two very different schools of working.” It is the physicality of free hand blowing, he says, the fact it requires a fluidity of movement that matches that of the molten glass, that makes it such a satisfyingly direct expression of his creative energies. “The complexity of the material and unlocking its huge potential by learning this abstract language is really stimulating intellectually,” he explains. “Even more so because it is through my hands and body movements that this occurs, which keeps everything very real and down to earth. “In a world which is increasingly turning to technology to produce more and more to satisfy this insatiable virtual need for high consumption, it is more important then ever to keep alive the old ways of making things. Otherwise everything would become much too diluted and our spaces extremely stale. “The underlying approach to my work is to align my body and mind and spirit with the glass in such a way as to enable the creative energies to flow through me.” www.jeremyglass.com