Autumn glass travellers

There’s been a fair bit of travel going on this Autumn, and Grant, Eileen, Hamish and Calum are all set for a two-week glassblowing residency in Poatina, Tasmania at the end of April. The glass they blow during this immersive fortnight has a very exciting purpose, but you’ll have to stay tuned to find that one out!

The family were offered the residency at the GAS (Glass Art Society) conference they attended in February. As you can see from the photos below, the conference was great fun and while Hamish and Eileen received commendations, Calum won the Vicki Torr Prize for Emerging Artists with Body Motion 1 and 2 (2024), which Calum created using the hand-blown Murini Technique. There’s a photo below of Eileen demonstrating how to make the very rare Tasmanian flower ‘Tasweegia Robusta’ and her late father, Alasdair, also featured in one of the talks.

Eileen and her mother Rish travelled to Perth, WA, in March as Eileen had been asked to judge the prestigious Tom Malone Glass Art Prize 2024 at the Linton&Kay Galleries in Cottesloe.

Later in March, a GAS travel program group came to our studio from the US for demostrations and lunch – on an itinerary across Australia that took in the Powerhouse Museum‘s glass collection with curator Eva Czernis-Ryl, drinks at Sabbia Gallery with Sydney-based glass artists, a tour of the largest facility for studio glass in the Southern Hemisphere, Canberra Glassworks, exploration of the world-class glass program at Australia National University with program head Dr. Jeffrey Sarmiento and behind-the-scenes tour of JamFactory.