Old-fashioned craftsmanship
Perth-Margaret River, 10th September 2014
On the day that Apple unveiled its latest Iphone (nr6 already!) and the long awaited smartwatch in a world where everything seems to revolve around IT technology nowadays, it is nice to know that there are still some old-fashioned craftsmen around. I had the pleasure of driving all the way down to Margaret River today (South of Perth) to meet one of the last hand glass blowing specialists in the country. The passion that these crafts people exude in creating their work is heart-warming and an immensely gratifying and stimulating experience. Our reason for meeting the husband and wife team was to find out if we could achieve the desired lighting effects with the hand blown glass shades we are after for our heritage project. I blogged about it a few days ago.
Equipped with my “doctor’s case”, a supplier converted briefcase with different lamp holders allowing us to test different lamp types, we spent our time trying out glass qualities and combinations with different light sources, different colours of light, different intensities and so on to determine the ideal material mix to later blow the glass shades into shape. It is absolutely amazing to realise that there is so much knowledge and experience that goes into creating pieces of glass that look simple from the outside but create stunning effects once it is “touched” by light. Let’s not forget glass was invented for light. There is no reason for the existence of glass if not for its unique quality to let light through! In that process we (through our eyes), are able to enjoy the lighting effects created by the interaction between light and the variety of glass qualities.
We managed to determine what glass and colour mix combinations will allow us to create the effects we are after but don’t tell me to try and write down a specification because that ultimate result with be down to their old fashioned craftsmanship. A truly enjoyable day…
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