I have worked in fused glass for the last 15 years, and have my own studio in the garden. I use a number of techniques to create both decorative and practical pieces. From early days of glass making I have enjoyed layering glass in such a way that it it creates holes within the structure as it fires. My Port Meadow Bowl was partly created this way, and shows the Thames flowing through the Meadow surrounded by trees.
Another technique is shown in the blue glass bowl with a wide lip is made by fusing different sheets of glass together and when they have cooled, putting the glass over a raised disk and heating it again so the glass drops sufficiently through the ring to form a vase or bowl. A similar process is used for the small mauve and plumb drop vases.
A more technique I've recently used is called crackled glass. The Spring Green leaf oval dish is an example. Here glass powders are layered on damp felt, manipulated until they crack and then fired under a piece of clear glass. Once cooled, they are reheated to a lesser heat to let them drop into a mould to shape them.
The three standing pieces are made by building up layers of glass between kiln bricks and then heating them until they form a block.
In all these three processes there is a lot of grinding and polishing needed to finish off pieces and often a third firing in the kiln.
I have my own website: cfglass.co.uk where a fuller range of my work can be found.
I am a member for the Oxfordshire Craft Guild and my work can be found on their website: oxfordshirecraftguild.co.uk and on their Spring Virtual Gallery on gallery.ocg.co.uk.
I have loved glass all my life, beginning when I visited Murano when I was about twelve and buying my mother a wonderful red glass vase. Then on a trip through Afghanistan in 1970 I purchased some very crude, but strikingly beautiful small blue glass tumblers, which I then had to protect from breaking as I continued my travels to India. Miraculously they all arrived home. I am often photographing water, and light on and through water trying to capture something which I then try to copy in my work. Shadow and light, translucency and opacity are constant themes in my glass. Light through leaves is another theme. I tend to prefer clear, pure colours rather than muddy, greyer tones. In one way I'm a bit of a magpie, and enjoy picking up different techniques, and then experimenting, doing things differently, having once got the idea of how to do something. Working in my garden studio and listening to music is a great joy.
I am a great enthusiast for craft and design not only as source of wellbeing, but also because of the mental and technical skills one acquires along the way and believe that they should be valued in schools and education.
I enjoy talking about my work to visitors and am very happy to discuss and take commissions.