Áine Ryan - Glass, the Body and Rural Feminist Practice - Glass Talk - 7th May 2026 5:30PM

Judith Wetherall

Going for Gold! 50 Years of Gilding

Judith Wetherall reflected on highlights from her long and varied career as a gilding conservator and gilder. With decades of hands-on experience, Judy had worked on a wide array of gilded objects, forming deep connections with the original makers and their remarkable craftsmanship -connections that continued to inspire her own creative work. Judy presented stories, insights, and examples from her conservation journey before diving into gilding materials and demonstrating selected practical gilding techniques helpful for glass working.

Sarah Brown

No Recipe Required: Forming Sweet Success in Glass

This talk traced Sarah Brown’s journey from choosing an art degree, through the formative years after graduation, to her current work pushing the boundaries of glass. In a candid, non-technical reflection she discussed sources of inspiration, challenging traditional approaches, and tackling ideas with no obvious method of making - showing how persistence and experimentation can guide you when there’s no map. She shared insights on embracing uncertainty, staying curious, and the ongoing adventure sparked by a childhood dream to keep making.

Catherine Dunstan

Writing Skills for Glass Artists

This seminar documented Catherine’s practical approach to using language to communicate artistic identity. She shared insights on crafting clear, authentic writing and demonstrated how thoughtful wording helps artists connect with potential clients and wider audiences.

Attendees examined real examples and discussed how different styles of writing shaped their responses, helping them identify how they wanted their own words to connect with others. Catherine also set short exercises and offered further prompts for continued practice after the session.

Steve Brown

Deep Glass Printing: Image/Things

This talk explored Steve Brown’s developments in deep glass printing with fine glass and powdered materials, allowing form to emerge from patterns and imagery. He discussed his re-imagining of printmaking technology, the context for these alternative methods, and how the print matrix generates ever-changing moments where artist and process shape new aesthetics and meanings. Drawing on wide influences, he sought to re-enchant materials and processes through storytelling, metaphor and fabulation, sharing studio photographs and moving image to convey the tacit dimension of making his glass artworks.

Effie Burns

The Alchemy of Making

This talk focused on how learning new skills has continually evolved Effie Burns’ practice. She reflected on her affinity for small, portable objects and a lifelong habit of collecting natural ephemera. She described how her experience of landscape is bound to the things she gathered, creating an alternative diary of the seasons that makes the transient permanent, and responding to changes in studio glass in Sunderland and at North Lands Creative. Effie also outlined how becoming a QEST scholar, receiving a DYCP grant from Arts Council England, and a residency exploring ‘wearable glass’ with North Lands Creative, Ruthin Craft Centre and the National Glass Centre all played significant roles in developing her work.

Choi Keeryong

Glass Artwork as a Cultural Uncanny Object

This talk examined the notion of unhomeliness through Choi Keeryong’s glass works, which intentionally embodied strangeness and resisted belonging within either Korean or British visual cultures. Choi reflected on living between cultures and the resulting pseudo-Korean-British imagery that can be read as both Western and Eastern, prompting questions about hybridity and cultural authenticity in contemporary life. He also outlined the techniques and processes underpinning the pieces.

Joshua Kerley

Mould Making for Kiln-Glass: Tips, Tricks and Hacks

This seminar drew on Joshua’s ~15 years working with kiln-glass, specialising in mould-based processes such as kiln-casting, pâte de verre and slumping. He shared practical knowledge, hints and tips to make working with moulds more effortless and enjoyable, and examined approaches to fabricating plaster–silica moulds alongside the creative potential of ceramic, vermiculite and steel moulds. He also presented examples of hybrid moulds combining techniques.

Anthony Scala

The Architecture of Light

This seminar traced Anthony Scala’s path from architectural model making into studio glass, showing how early exposure to architectural processes shaped his lateral approach to making. He reflected on how his work has evolved and the mechanisms that fuelled that change. As a case study, he unpacked one complex piece, outlining the many processes behind it and candidly noting the perils and pitfalls encountered along the way.

Helen Slater Stokes

Spatial Perception: A New Visual Language in Glass

This seminar traced our long fascination with images that play with perception and presented Helen Slater Stoke’s PhD research into how images are perceived within glass. She explored visual cues, stereoscopic methods and lenticular lens–based approaches to create spatial images that increase perceived depth and three-dimensional intensity, extending perception beyond the physical boundaries of the glass form. Helen outlined the technical developments achieved and showed works produced during the research.

Jane Bruce

Towards Understanding - From Film to Glass And Back Again

This talk saw Jane Bruce reflect on pivotal series, what sparked them, and the rigorous research - drawings, models and tests - behind each finished work. Originally bound for film and theatre design, she was diverted by glass at the RCA and emerged as a member of the UK Studio Glass movement. Extensive travel and residencies shaped her practice; in retrospect, she recognises a constant thread across glass and, more recently, drawing and video: defining space and the viewer’s interaction with it.

Joanna Manousis

'Mirrors of the Third Dimension': Cast Glass as a Canvas

This lecture mapped Joanna Manousis’ practice-based PhD at the National Glass Centre, exploring cast glass sculpture as a reflective canvas for varied mirror effects. She expanded the possibilities of silvering in cast glass, showing how method, glass body, refractory, firing and the chosen form can dictate surface precision, reflection and shine. She also discussed modifying refractory ingredients to prevent adhesion and using chemical polishing to bring crystal to peak clarity and lustre without effacing detail.

Bob Leatherbarrow

Concept to Creation

This lecture by Bob Leatherbarrow guided attendees through a structured approach to planning and creating glass art. Beginning with the ‘why’, moving to the ‘how’, and concluding with the ‘what’, it mapped each stage from defining and refining a vision, through testing methods, to execution and review. Using several finished pieces as case studies, Bob showed how he documents ideas, builds models, and tests materials and techniques using a science-based process before developing and completing the work. The approach offered a practical framework for planning new pieces and for answering the perennial question: ‘What’s this all about?’

Silvia Levenson

Who in the world am I? That is the great puzzle!

This seminar by Silvia Levenson recounted her entry into glass and art, showing how curiosity and “not knowing” — rather than formal training — shaped her voice. She shared a travel anecdote about Murano and expectations around glass to illustrate how labels can mislead, and argued that doing and thinking are inseparable in her practice. Silvia emphasised the value of learning, sharing and reflection, and closed by reflecting on the recurring identity questions that inform her work — artist, Argentinian, Italian, activist — “that is the great puzzle.”

Nathan Sandberg

Am I Doing it Right?

Georgia Redpath

The Elements of Creativity

This talk by Georgia Redpath drew on her 14 years of practice to show how pattern, a limited set of parts and repetition informed her work — likening this to the four basic elements, a box of LEGO and the 26 letters of the alphabet. She described casting as a reproductive, iterative method that, although slow, propelled development through multiples and the constant switch between positive and negative. Polished glass was shown to offer optical depth and the ability to see through a piece, while subtler translucent finishes held light and produced an inner glow. Together these three elements framed ongoing lines of inquiry that she continued to pursue.

Saman Kalantari

Glass Artist by Accident(s)

Ian Chadwick

The Ritual of Process

Paul Tarlow

Creating New Techniques

Alison Lowry

Artistic Narrative