Journal

It's Day Five of the rebuild

It's Day Five of the rebuild

Brick by brick our third furnace is growing..... ready for glassmaking over Autumn and Winter months.

 

British Glass Biennale 2024

British Glass Biennale 2024

We are delighted to have had one of our Landscape Bowls selected to show at the 10th British Glass Biennale.

The piece is a Swedish Overlay in gold and Heliotrope, wheel cut, sandblasted and engraved with a collection of marks gathered from observations of the Rosedale landscape. For millenia, people have shaped this dale, working the landscape to survive and thrive, leaving behind marks of their toil.

One hundred and twenty-one artists were selected out of 326 applicants to present the most interesting, diverse and outstanding glass art made in the UK in the last two years.

The exhibition is open Tuesday to Saturday from 26 August to 28 September at the Glasshouse, Stourbridge; the heart of the historic glass industry in the UK.

The show is an eclectic mix of techniques and works and well worth a visit, with more works on view than ever before.

The next event, in 2026, moves lock stock and barrel to the World of Glass St Helens. We look forward to the next incarnation of the event now in the hands of the American Glass Art Society.

The Americans have a vast experience in staging events for glass, we visited the annual GAS conference in Berlin this year and loved every minute of it, so we look forward to seeing how the Biennale and the IFG develops in 2026.

A Good Year for the Roses

A Good Year for the Roses

This is a beauty, all my Roses are having a wonderful year, as are all the plants.

Anyone know what this Rose is called ?

Pruning

Pruning

I trimmed an overhanging bough from a lime tree recently.

Seemed a shame to waste it, and also cut some beautiful broken roses were are being battered by the July wind and rain.

I brought them both inside to enjoy their beauty a while longer.

Vases for Summers Flowers

Vases for Summers Flowers

Our white vase is perfect for a single bloom or a small posey of summers flowers.

Roses are my favourite, but really, anything goes.

I'll be posting some images on instagram over the next week.

give us a follow there @gilliesjonesglass

Emptying the Furnace

Emptying the Furnace

The studio is cool and quiet. ⁠The furnace is off at the moment.

It's a strange mix of emotions... a relief as the summer has just arrived.

The prolonged chill has been a great time for glassmakers.

It's always always disconcerting when the cycling heart beat of the studio goes quiet.⁠

It's time for a rebuild, a new box of bricks, this one lasted us 16 years so she did well.


Time to renew.⁠

Hope to be back up and running in September, just as the Autumn returns.⁠

If you come to the studio over the next few weeks, although we are not blowing glass there will always be a warm welcome.⁠

Wild Garlic Bowl

Wild Garlic Bowl

Our first Limited Edition of 2024 is a delicate interpretation of an intricate flower.
Like spring’s sparklers these beauties have burst into bloom, carpeting woodland, standing tall among a sea of dark green leaves.
This new bowl highlights the beauty of this edible woodland plant.
A delicate transparent white glass bowl with a deep transparent green lip wrap.
Wild Garlic Flowers

Wild Garlic Flowers

Wild garlic waits underground for the majority of the year until, in spring time, it makes the most of the light available under the tree canopy.
Growing in dense colonies of starry white flowers borne on straight green stems, the unmistakeable smell alone is a tell tale sign you’re close!
A native of Asia, wild garlic is common here, going by many names such as buckram’s and ramsom’s. Bear garlic and bear’s leek are said to come from brown bears’ fondness for eating the bulbs when emerging from hibernation in Europe.
With magnesium rich leaves, it can be eaten by humans to fight off coughs and colds, while history suggests it was used to treat toothache, warts, measles, mumps, rheumatism, cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive problems, as well as for the sterilisation of wounds.
Like spring’s sparklers these beauties have burst into bloom, carpeting woodland, standing tall among a sea of dark green leaves.