Clare Gaylard Glass
Lampwork Glass, Jewellery and Wearable Art, created by me: Clare Gaylard in my Suffolk studio.
'There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion' Francis Bacon
I'm a British artist and I graduated from
Loughborough College of Art and Design with a BA Hons in Silversmithing &
Jewellery in 1989. I went on to work very happily as an art teacher and
head of year at an East London secondary school before moving to live
for more than a decade overseas in Kenya, Thailand and Singapore. During
that time I worked for various NGO's, latterly as an art gallery
curator - and had three children.
In 2006 I took a workshop in glass at Hoglund Glass in New Zealand, taught by Micah Lamar. Having always created (in any media to hand) I found the 'the one', nothing is quite like hot glass. I went on to have solo exhibitions, home studios, I taught workshops, and was an artist in residence while living in Bangkok and Singapore.
Returning to Suffolk in 2010 (my art foundation was in Ipswich) I joined Suffolk Open Studios and became a selected member of The Suffolk Craft Society. In 2014 I moved from my home studio in Framlingham, to a re-purposed barn in nearby Earl Soham, where I create, teach, exhibit and sell my work.
Flamework / Lampwork
Working with glass is a synthesis of powerful elements: colour, light, fire and a medium that moves rapidly between liquid and solid states.
Practice
As an artist and designer-maker I'm engaged in approaching the universal through the particular. All work and ideas are my own, I do not copy or mass produce.
The glass and the processes I use are of a quality chosen to extend the lifespan and beauty of my work. I kiln anneal and hand clean all my glass. Annealing soaks the glass at 960 degrees then cools it gradually over ten hours, to reduce the chance of stress fractures and strengthen the glass.
Places
All exhibition venues and my studio currently closed again due to COVID restrictions.