Clare Gaylard Glass 

Very much looking forward to this, not least because it's at the seaside.

Valentines commission for a Queen of Hearts, this one was rolled in silverleaf then burnished and superheated so there’s a lovely, soft lustre to it. A miniature medieval-style ‘grand geste’. 

Workbench under a scribble of glass threads. Students from Framlingham College yesterday on a Suffolk Craft Society visit, seeing how far they could each pull molten glass. A final walk down the length of my workshop gave us a six foot stretch.

I was commissioned by the author to make a totem to mark the launch of her second novel this week (reviewed at length in the Financial Times last weekend). She sent me the words above as a brief, and my first response was to put together this collage of images. THEN I came across the Frederic Church painting of the era showing Mount Tambora erupting and it pulled everything together. Voices that remain with the reader and themes for our times. Plus I'm a proud sister-in-law.

Making and testing murrini (millefiori) I'm looking for a floral effect and enjoyed seeing this one bloom in the flame. 

Turquoise, Amber, and Antique Green glass ring with silver leaf - yielding a LOT of reflections.

On the home workbench, it is no longer thus.

Preparations underway in London, one of my favourite times of year when we lived in Asia. The drums and the lions particularly.

An eccentric blend of things, docked in Ipswich until mid-Feb. The exterior is half-biblical scale and is simple and monumental. The interior however, is a wild mixture of collectors finds thrown in or aligned with tableaus of bible scenes. Intriguingly the bedroom (and vast unmade bed) of King Solomon who had 1000 wives - is given more space than the birth or crucifiction of Christ. A huge Easter Bunny is lurking in a dark corner of the nativity. A huge medley of a project - self aware enough to have this book among the others, so I snagged my own copy when I got home. 

Vessel and totem.

I've never been to Mexico, or in fact the Americas - it's all been in the other direction from the UK with New Zealand being the back stop. So the Mexican Gallery at the British Museum delivers something remarkable. These artefacts, so far out of the context of time and place, still generate a power and character (besides the crafstmanship) that literally stops people in their tracks.

The fragment of Amethyst Geode at the centre of these images (and a lovely commission) was the seed of my exploration in glass shown around it, and more. I love a microcosm, and this journey was all the more pleasing for having been unplanned. There was a moment post-commission when I could have cleared the colours off my workbench and reverted to prior plans and chose not to. Now the trick is knowing when to stop.

Some of the smaller rings I've been making, the narrowest ones stack beautifully and have a slightly underwater quality.

I'm vacillating (on a daily basis) between needing vibrant colour or being drawn into the washed out, bleached nature in the fields and garden.

This was the commission that led me astray on an ivory and amethyst colourway towards the end of last year. There is always a tension between following well-laid plans and taking a tangent, I'm happy that I cleared my workbench for this and all that ensued, but I still have business to do with water and bright colour. Plus whatever 2020 brings.

All the best for the turn of another decade and thank you for coming by. Health, abundance and happiness for 2020. Thanks to temporary resident Liz Gaylard for making time to take some of the better photos (six out of nine here) amidst personal, creative projects.

To those that celebrate, I thought I'd posted this. An old collage (lovely George Herbert and the Metaphysical poets in general) and this years wreath looking very nest-like due to needing to use ivy as a binding agent.

Colour and gold-leaf being particularly attractive on these grey days. Thanks to everyone who came by my studio and you can find my work at The Sentinel Gallery & Great Walsingham Gallery and Frame this December.