Phallus Impudicous

Phallus Impudicous
When I first arrived in Frome my girlfriend of the time was working for Neil Wilkin. Neil Wilkin, at the time, was regarded as the best glass blower in the country. Later he was to develop his own body of work that met great critical acclaim. His work is known internationally too. He has work in the V&A collection, Crafts Council collection. Multiple components became his signature and these tentacle like pieces were grouped together with sophisticated stainless steel engineering connections to make his clear glass chandeliers. Inspired by nature and plant forms, his seed heads remain highly sort after. As part of the refit of Liberties of London I helped with designs for the sculptural chandeliers that were fixed above a series of display tables I also designed but had made by a London shop fitting workshop. There were various bases and plinths in maple, oak and walnut I supplied for Neil's organic sculpture. The kitchen I designed and built for his house was featured in a multi page article in House and Garden. This was designed for his wife and had a granite sink surround, oak work surfaces with painted doors and drawer fronts.
After completing a post graduate course in glass, my partner joined Neil's team. Various exstudents looking for hands on experience in a top glass studio would come to work at Neil's, some stayed for a few months others, like Alice and to a greater degree, Sonja Klingler, stayed much longer, becoming highly proficient glass blowers. Sonja is now amongst the best glass blowers working in this country.
Neil's workshop, with the precision cold glass area run by Steve Frey, now a well respected glass artist in his own right, made work for many of the top European glass artists. Floris Van Den Brooke, Emily Dickinson, Meno Jonker, Rachel Woodman, Kevin McCloud and many other artists had their glass work made there. The team grew to some fifteen at its peek but there were roughly seven working there when Alice began.
My first visit to the studio was utterly amazing. The team were working on some vast pieces for the Dutch artist Peter Brehmens. His pioneering technique of the double graal involved initially making mango sized multi layered graals. Once cooled slowly in the leer, Peter would grind through the many layers of colour revealing contrasting patterns of pure colour. These were then heated and covered with a further layer and turned inside out, again slowly cooled, ground through the layers from the other side. Finally, by gathering a punty, a small dollop of hot glass on to the blowing iron, they were reheated by Neil and the team and blown to literally the biggest size possible. The correography of the team who all had roles that took precision timing for the correct heat and positioning was like some religious ritual. Six people who all knew their jobs and worked together to make the single piece. These works were some two foot in diameter and once blown were shaped and allowed to form under Peters instruction. The telepathy of artist and maker was something special. In my field of fine furniture making everything is planned. Closer to engineering, each process can be slowed, paused, jogged wherever possible, minimising risk wherever possible. Hot glass, however, is a fluid process of intuitive tacit knowledge. Timing is crucial. Trust in the coworkers essential. The sheer weight of a piece that size requires great strength, and controlled strength. An organic fluid precision, carried out under intense heat. I was very fortunate to witness this team at their finest. Something that has been unequalled in Britain since. You have to go to Italy, to the Venetian glass blowers to find hot glass skills that special.
Of course, as a designer, my mind began to consider the techniques. To think in the medium. There was no way I could spend the time developing a second craft skill. Only total commitment and many thousands of hours could bring you even close. But the facility was there and for a time me and Alice would go in on weekends and use the studio.
I was fortunate, with Neil's generosity in allowing us to work there, and Alice's kindness and skill in coming into work on a weekend to realise the ideas I came up with. I only exhibited my glass works a few times but always sold. The Stickleback table was a simple form in black walnut, a maple box under the top surface concealed a light box. The top was carved in to a moonscape, a line of holes snaking across the top, carved into volcanic craters. This detail was developed from the Mutagen table I had made at college that appeared in various woodwork magazines. Like a spray of machine gun fire running along the top. These craters heals glass spikes of various sizes. The outer spikes as small as four inches and diameter at the base of twelve millimetres. These spikes sprayed out randomly like plant growth to the central spikes that were some ten or twelve inches in length, twenty millimetres in diameter. The table had no real function and in that sense was purely sculptural. Yet, at night, in pitch dark, it sparkled like some other worldly undersea life form.
It was rather out of place at Cheltenham but back then I was yet to recognise that exhibiting in the wrong place is worse than not exhibiting at all. Fortunately it was selected for a fine art exhibition in Nottingham where, amongst other sculpture it made greater coherence and sold. I think the show was called, 'Beneath the Surface', the concept of the curation was basically that of an objects reasoning, much like the roots of a tree, lay beneath its surface. More usually my work tries to communicate a feeling or an idea we all have but eludes language. This piece was the final piece of my Domestic Monsters series. This family of pieces were made as a response to French philosopher Jean Baudrillards 'System of Objects'. He stated that the object was the ultimate domestic animal. Like a pet but free of the cats claws, the dogs shit, the animal realities that we find unsightly or objectionable. My Domestic Monsters aimed to reinstate the wildness. To create uncastrated beasts of the living room. Dangerous, frightening, uncouth, untrained. The dogs that in our society are beyond retraining and find themselves euthanised after biting one too many people. My vision was to escape the consensus that furniture should be comfortable and reassuring. By freeing these wild animals our homes could once again hold the adventure our ancestors felt on coming across a bear, or a pack of wolves in dark woodland.
My other glassworks were an independent series. Mostly phallic in shape though often twisted and fungoid I titled the series 'Phallus Impudicous', the Latin name for the stink horn. They were intentionally impudent, intentionally phallic. I would sketch out the shapes then draw them on the studio floor in chalk, from these designs Alice made them, altering details as we worked to form the shapes I intended. An initial gather of pure colour was covered over three or more times in clear glass gathers from the furnace. Once the rough shape was established they were rolled on a flat steel engineers table in powdered black glass, reheated then rolled in carborundum. This sudden cooling formed wrinkles. The finish looked black and metallic. Only one cut and polished could the clear glass be seen with the inner lining of pure colour, blue, red, green, white. I tended to cut them at an angle forming an ellipse. Along with these disturbing pieces I designed other less blatantly phallic, single flower vases. A pair in blue glass sold at the only glass show I exhibited in and were bought by a glass gallery in Bath and sold to a private collector. A clear glass vase sold to a local client.
Pictures of these can be found on my God Box blog but once I get chance to use a proper computer I will add them to this posting. I am currently restricted to iPad.
My glassworks were popular but it was pure luck that I found myself with the top glass studio in the country in which to play. To pay for the days at a similar facility, were I even able to find one, would be beyond my means. The quality of glass in most studios hasn't the purity. Minor tiny imperfections in the glass would spoil the effect. Compared to furniture, however, it is a quick medium to work in. Decisions must be taken at speed and one must learn to go with the flow. Unpredicted wonders occur and choosing to steer the piece in an organic manner, flowing with the material and the object as you go is quite unlike furniture. It is unlikely I will get a chance like that again but being a craftsman myself I found it quite wonderful and liberating to have skilled hands creating ones own vision to a standard I could never come close to on my own.


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