Alison Blanchard OCG, WOA – portfolio

Contact the artist

http://www.mrsblanch.co.uk
07899 953309
enquiries[at]mrsblanch.co.uk

Meet the artist

The artist at work

https://online.fliphtml5.com/bhxmh/bzli/

Exhibition information

I am a glass artist working with fused and stained glass. I am currently working on a series of chunky fused glass pieces experimenting with how glass flows at high temperatures.  Some of these will be on display.  In addition, I will have my “Out of Africa” series together with glass lemons, eggs and a series of small vegetables made during my recent casting journey and of course my functional platters, bowls and my botanical art. Much of my art is inspired by nature and flowers are a particular love of mine. The challenge of recreating them in glass either in 2D, as a picture, or 3D, as garden art, is exciting. I have a range of large and small glass flowers – poppies, daisies, lilies and buttercups which can be “arranged” with cut flowers to make a beautiful display in your home or “planted” in your garden. I also have several very tactile botanical pictures of flowers which can hang on your walls or stand on on your windowsill.

 

Beautiful sunsets have inspired my pendant collection which I am particularly proud of. My favourite ones being in the purples although the orange hues come a very close second. Each pendant is constructed of three layers of glass and requires two to three kiln firings to complete but remains elegant. To this collection I have added seascape pendants which capture the essence of seaside holidays.

 

I will also be showing dishes and platters which I have made in a range of wonderful bold and vibrant colours. These come under the useful and useless (display only!) categories but always bring joy. They range in size from small ring dishes of approximately 8cm x 8cm to large round bowls with a diameter of approximately 29cm and all sizes and shapes in between. They can be used for a variety of functional purposes or to bring colour to a room. I will be showing framed glass pictures some of which are botanical, and others abstract but again the colours and tactile nature set them apart. There will also be candle holders and lanterns suitable for indoor or outdoor entertainment which would brighten up any table. My exhibition will also include a range of beautiful decorous vases in a variety of colours – perfect for your spring flowers or they would make great gifts. They are approximately 12cm high and come in a range of colours from greens to purples, orange to red and would look stunning on anyone’s mantlepiece. Each one is unique. I very much hope you will enjoy my exhibition and I look forward to seeing you in May.

Artist information

Having lived and worked in Oxford all my life and with my children leaving home I decided it was time to branch out and pursue my interests in art. I first became interested in glass after having seen glass artists at Art in Action at Waterperry. I did my first glass course in July 2014 with Siobhan Jones in Worthing which I loved. During a trip to Cornwall, I stumbled across a craft fair and a local artist was exhibiting her glassware and we got chatting. She told me she had started off with her first kiln in her dining room which made me think that anything was possible! I came home and converted my study to a studio and bought a kiln. Since then I have had a lot of fun experimenting.

 

I am inspired by nature and colour. Whilst on a walk, I will often stop and take a photo of a clump of flowers, an individual flower or a sunset to remind myself of the colours. I spent a lot of time walking across Port Meadow and during lockdown I decided to try and recreate buttercups in glass. For those of you who know the meadow you will remember how it looks like a carpet of yellow at the beginning of the summer. It was a challenge to get the shape of the petals and convert them into a 3D flower head that resembled a buttercup but once I had done it, I then fixed them to “stalks” and put them in my own garden as garden art. From there I moved on to various other flowers – poppies, lilies and daisies. It is lovely when you can get some movement into the petals which brings them to life.

 

From the amazing sunsets we have had I took inspiration from the boiling skies to make a series of sunset pendants which will be on display. To complement these I have also done some seascape pendants creating seabeds out of frit (small pieces of glass). These are very complex pieces despite their size, they involve at least two firings in the kiln if not three and take roughly 4-5 days to complete.

 

I love experimenting with different techniques and creating gorgeous pieces in vibrant colours. The beauty of glass is the colours it comes in and how you can turn a sheet of glass into something beautiful and sometimes practical by taking into consideration the way it transmits light and the textures you can create. It is a very tactile medium. I have had fun “painting” with glass using glass frit and glass powders creating mainly botanical pictures that can be hung on your wall. I have had fun exploring pattern and trying to get movement into glass by melting it from a height over mandrels which disrupts its flow to make pattern bars which can be sliced and incorporated into pieces. My latest exploits have been into casting – making lemons, eggs and small vegetables out of glass. This is a complex process involving making models of real lemons, converting them into wax so that you can make a mould to withstand the heat of the kiln and finally melting the glass into the mould and eventually ending up with a glass lemon. It takes 3-4 days in the kiln to heat the glass up to a liquid so that it can fill the mould and cool down very slowly avoiding the chance of or the glass cracking.

 

I have also been experimenting with printing on glass and making chunky pieces that can stand up on their own. I have made a series of pieces using images of African animals and colours to produce my “Out of Africa” series which I hope you will enjoy. Enquiries and commissions welcome!