Top of the glass

The extraordinary International Festival of Glass runs from August 22-25, but it also incorporates the British Glass Biennale, which is based at Ruskin Glass Centre, Amblecote in Stourbridge, which runs until September 28.

The whole shebang has previously been previewed by my colleague and fellow Guillemots fan Terry Grimley, who hailed it 'the most internationally significant visual arts event taking place in the West Midlands this year.' The international roll-call of glassmakers and artists taking part in exhibitions, workshops at all levels and talks is quite extraordinary.

Some famous names have contributed to a special show of glass beads - currently one of the hottest (sorry!) areas of the glassmakers' craft. Some of the participants are sculptors who normally work on a much larger scale. The theme for this show - and throughout the whole event - is The Tempest.

Twelve artists from ten countries have contributed to an international sculpture garden - created all in glass, of course - at the old cone courtyard at Ruskin Glass Centre, which is being transformed by garden designers, Spaceoutside and civil engineers Greenford Ltd into an amazing new landscape. The garden has been curated by Matthew Durran, one of the most exciting and versatile young artists working in glass in Britain.

The soundscape to the garden has been contributed by British composer Andrew Peggie, who has come over from his base in France to be an artist-in-residence for the duration of the event, exploring the delicate sounds to be had from glass and glass instruments. These sounds - plus traditional instruments and computer manipulation - feature in what for me (and the grandchildren) promises to be one of the highlights of the whole event, Tempestade, which is being staged at Richardson Hall, and which I previewed in a previous posting.

It's being staged by Theatre of Glass, an Anglo-Portuguese collaboration, and is breaking new ground in utilising specially-made glass marionettes and glass musical instruments in its large-scale shadow theatre interpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Theatre of Glass has been created by the West Midlands-based artists of PuppetLink working with a team of artists from the puppet company S.A.Marionetas, based in Alcobaça, Portugal. Over the months building up to the premiere of Tempestade, the two companies have worked together - in both countries - to develop new techniques in spectacular, cinematic-scale shadow puppetry.

In Portugal, glass designers and makers from the world-renowned Atlantis Crystal (Cós), and the glass training school Crisform (Marinha Grande) have been creating the original glass puppets for Tempestade.
Starting with the idea of magical transformations inherent in the play, artistic director Clive Chandler has exploited the magical transformation of sand into glass to create the ethereal magic of the piece.

The production uses glass marionettes, about a foot high, with bell-like bodies, projected on to a large screen by moving light sources, so that they can appear a metre high or their own size. These interact with other projections of glass objects, of the performers' bodies, of musical instruments, and intermingled with projections of light through water, oils and sand, creating cascading and fluid images.

Similarly to traditional Indonesian shadow theatre, behind the screen of Tempestade there is a kind of 'glass gamelan' providing a range of glass that can be played percussively.

This includes a glass aquarion, effectively providing three octaves in the manner of a xylophone, and a range of large crystal glasses (of the size of very generous red wine glasses) which are tuned with water, and finally two large crystal bowls. Another musical innovation is the specially created 'overhead projector double harp', which is based on the design of a medieval psaltery and fits over an OHP to project an image of the plucked strings.

All that seems to be missing is a glass ukulele!

Right let's finish with a plug for the people who have helped make all this possible.
Lead sponsor is Warm Glass, the UK's main supplier of kiln-forming materials. Warm Glass, it says here, provide easy access to a wealth of inspirational fusing supplies for glass artists and to foster a love of kiln-forming by providing quality education.

Kilncare, market leaders in glass kilns and a family-led business have been at the heart of the British glass industry for a quarter of a century and are sponsoring the Tempest bead exhibition where they will launch a new range of entry and professional level bead making kilns, which have been designed and tested with a focus on efficiency, reliability and safety.

The International Festival of Glass have asked me to also acknowledge the support of Crafts Magazine, Design Arts Magazine, Enville Brewery and Ty Nant.

But it's not all corporate support. One of the heartening things about the whole affair is the heritage element contributed to by local organisations and churches, putting today's industry in its historical context, with lots of heritage trails and walks. There's family participation and entertainment everywhere, lots of good food and even a free shuttle bus to beat the notorious parking problems of the area.

There can't be many better ways of spending the Bank Holiday, which culminates in an Egyptian finale at the Glass Centre. Egyptair is sponsoring the rare visit by glassmakers from that country and the Egyptian government has also co-operated on the finale, which includes musicians and Sufi dancers.

Pictures include the Biennale entry jury, Will Farmer, of Fieldings auctioneers, Deirdre Figueirdeo, director, Craftspace, Jeremy Hunt, Editor, Art and Architecture, Kim Wawhinney, curator of applied art, Ulster Museum, and glass artist Angela Thwaites. Also pictured is a glass dress by Diana Dias-Leao.