Clare Gaylard Glass 

Would you like to see the process? Largely unchanged over hundreds of years, immediate and rather alchemical. Send me a note via my 'Contact' page and I wil let you know when I am having Open Days.

Turquoise glass just seems to pull the light more than most other colours, I am still playing with rings and looking at driftwood, seaglass and shells gathered over the summer for a starting point. First day back in the studio and taking it on the chin that nothing quite comes together.

Fairly uninhibited doodling, ideas for a Blue&White lampwork ring commission.

A schoolchild asked me last weekend how I 'get' my ideas. I have kept sketchbooks and scrapbooks since college. Some ideas and images take hold deep and fast, but others need to be recorded and digested. These books are resources, diaries and catalogues. I use ink in my sketchbooks so I can't clean up and edit too much and I tear the pictures for my scrapbooks so I can't get precious.

In the Princess Arcade near Picadilly in London you can see some wonderful Faberge eggs. These are some of my eggs.

Picasso's Vollard Suite is showing at the British Museum. Lots of fluid etchings with his minotaur alter ego showing a good deal of ambivalence towards the females depicted. here is mine, behaving.

I once saw an old film of Picasso painting onto a backlit screen. This permitted you to see how he mapped out his work. He never started wth the salient points but used a series of abstract lines that slowly resolved themselves into a figurative work.

I have gone down the rabbit hole in favour of blue&white recently, here is a sampling. I scavenged a lot of blue and white china seconds while we lived in Asia and have a completely mismatched collection. The colours are so pure and cool in combination. I frequently drank tea at the amazing (and completely blue and white) Agalico tearooms in Bangkok, worth a virtual scoping out (google) if you can't get there in person.

Some of my glass eggs, macaroons from Laduree in favour of a real egg (the packaging is worth keeping) and ceramic flowers on a cross from a graveyard in Dol de Bretagne.

The Suffolk Open Studios Winter Exhibition opens Friday 2nd December. I will be exhibiting and selling glass. I have been dipping into a rich colour pallette as all the countryside slowly turns monochrome around me.

There is always more than one answer to what inspires a piece of art, but this one is easy. Niki de Saint Phalle is a favourite artist of mine and my exuberant bathing beauties are a tribute to her 'Nanas' She made some of her muses large enough to walk around inside and I enjoyed miniaturising mine to the size of a glass bead. If you want some carnival for the eyes check out her work http://www.nikidesaintphalle.com/

It doesn't come much simpler or more satisfying than a marble, I never mastered the game but I spent a fair bit of pocket money collecting them and marvelling over them. My brothers knew the names, the games and the street value of each item but I ended up with the longer term relationship. These are called 'Regatta'.

The Showcase at Blackthorpe Barn, Bury St Edmunds opens tonight. When I saw that it was a medieval barn I imagined a rough exterior and a gallery interior, actually the interior is pretty medieval too so it is a big difference from my last few exhibitions in purpose made galleries.

We were in France over Easter and I enjoyed all the washed out pastel shades, gilding, patisseries and of course the Easter Eggs. I'm fascinated by the obsessive miniaturism of Faberge eggs so I have been making some of my own, but I haven't managed to dig out my gold leaf yet, see above..

'On the floating, shapeless oceans, I did all my best to smile, til your singing eyes and fingers, drew me loving into your eyes. And you sang, "Sail to me, sail to me, let me enfold you.' Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you.' This Mortal Coil

My camera is playing me up but I think you can see the siren on the left is starting to lash her tail. Calypso is in the middle bound by her own desire.

I am finally ventillated and Gas Safe, this is my workbench before it has had the chance to get properly lived in. I have been working with a hothead torch and welders bottles of gas until now. These bottles start to frost up after an hour of torching, the noise is intense and the flame is cold, dirty and bushy. The bottles run out after about four hours, it is a pretty joyless process! As of last Thursday I have a graceful, intense, silent flame to work with and that is a beautiful thing.

My years in Thailand were characterised by bringing up three small children and doing work for non-profit orgs. Also by the deep beauty around us inspiring and informing my art. Our old home and neighbourhood was a block away from Lumpini Park and has been pretty much at the centre of the current troubles. It is shocking to see our old streets, friends and neighbours caught up in so much violence and they are very much in our thoughts.

(my grandmother who always wore blue and said the rosary every day). Incomplete but already a test of my own meditative focus and calm. The shapes are complex, precise and multi-layered and reflect the unfolding, flower/petal symbolism of the rosary.

Jessie Gaylard died while I was packing my exhibition down on a breezy, sunny afternoon and handling all the heaven-and-earth inspired art. I said to Jessie that  I would make her some glass as soon as the exhibition ended but she couldn't wait. So the Pharohs were buried with their ornaments and something is on its way to WA by hand.

 A couple of exhibition stories. Songlines has been aquired by a company that specialise in unique awards and trophies, I was wanting to bring his one home so it's good to see him go somewhere interesting.