Co-convenors
Alison Inglis, University of Melbourne
Bio: Dr Alison Inglis AM is an Honorary Fellow in Art History at the University of Melbourne and Acting Co-Director of the Australian Institute of Art History. She has participated in the wider Australian museum sector, serving on several boards, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Heide Museum of Modern Art, and Museums Victoria. Recent publications/exhibitions: with B. Hughes, Luminous: John Orval Stained Glass, Hamilton Gallery, 2022; with M. Tasker, ‘Introduction to Pre-Raphaelitism and Australasia’, Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies, Vol.26, 2, 2022, i-xv; with J. Mendelssohn, C. Speck and C. de Lorenzo, Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening Our Eyes, Thames & Hudson Australia, 2018.
Bronwyn Hughes, GLAAS Inc
Bio: Bronwyn and Donna Kennedy founded the not-for-profit GLAAS Inc, dedicated to promoting the creative use of glass in twenty-first century architecture and preservation of Australia’s historic stained glass through research, education and publication. Throughout 2022 she has chaired the S E Asia, Australasia and Oceania region for the United Nations International Year of Glass.
Speakers
Tina Baum, National Gallery of Australia
Paper title: Reflections on Yhonnie Scarce’s works in glass in the 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire, 2017
Abstract: In this paper, Tina Baum will discuss her role as curator of the 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire, held at the National Gallery of Australia in 2017. She will focus, in particular, on the remarkable works of glass created by Yhonnie Scarce – Thunder Raining Poison, 2015, and Glass bomb (Blue Danube) Series, 2015. The artist was born in Woomera, South Australia, and belongs to the Kokatha and Nukunu peoples, and she has achieved great acclaim for her “confronting and evocative works [that] look at the consequences of nuclear testing and remind us of the significant and poignant role Maralinga plays in Aboriginal and Australian history”. Baum will shed light on the curatorial challenges presented by these extraordinarily complex and fragile installations – Thunder Raining Poison is made up of over 2,000 glass yams, suspended at a height of 5 metres – and reflect on the powerful presence of the works’ fusion of meaning and medium.
Bio: Tina Baum is from the Gulumerrgin/Gulumerridjin (Larrakia)/ Wardaman/ Karajarri peoples of the Northern Territory and Western Australia and born and raised in Garramilla (Darwin), Northern Territory. She has over 30 years’ experience working in Museums and Art Galleries throughout Australia and has worked at the Queensland Museum, Meanjin (Brisbane); the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Garramilla (Darwin); and the National Museum of Australia, Kamberi (Canberra). She has been the Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra since 2005. Some of Tina’s achievements include curating the 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial: Defying Empire major exhibition in 2017 at the NGA and the Emerging Elders exhibition in 2009. She also worked on both the first and second National Indigenous Art Triennials at the National Gallery of Australia, Culture Warriors in 2007 and unDisclosed in 2012. She has been a judge and pre-selection panellist for National and state Art Prizes and has published in numerous magazines and publications including national and international exhibition catalogues and journals.
Ian Brilley, Hamilton Gallery
Paper title: Challenges and Innovations in exhibition design: Luminous; John Orval Stained Glass at Hamilton Gallery
Abstract: Hamilton Gallery Director, Joshua White, and Exhibitions and Collections Coordinator, Ian Brilley, explore and reveal the complexity in developing and delivering an exhibition based on the medium of stained glass. The Hamilton Gallery team explored new exhibition technologies and techniques to create a unique audience experience, whilst innovating and adhering to arts industry standards to present Luminous John Orval Stained Glass Artist.
Bio: Ian Brilley has worked within exhibition design and implementation and collection management for over a decade. As the Steward of the Hamilton Gallery collection, he not only cares for the 9000+ objects but he has been instrumental in the growth of the collection, with strategic acquisitions of works by nationally and internationally significant artists. Brilley has developed and delivered more than 150 exhibitions with renowned curators, artists, institutions and scholars, and worked on many specialised projects such as academic publications, technology-based exhibitions and public art.
Jane Brown, University of Melbourne
Paper title: Glass labyrinths: The phenomena of glass and photography
Abstract: Depending on the angle, glass can refract, reflect, layer or make crystalline. The fascination, therefore, is in a phenomenon that can both obfuscate and illuminate. In this paper I will explore the lasting interest photographers, such as myself, have with the material and visual properties of glass. From the Oriel Window, in the South Gallery at Lacock Abbey, where in 1835, the pioneer and inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), made one of the earliest photographs in existence, to the surrealist photographer Lee Miller (1907–1977), whose photograph, The Exploding Hand (1930), was made possible by the visual properties of scratched glass. I will also discuss my current exhibition, There’s a certain Slant of light (Castlemaine Art Museum) where glass as substrate and as subject is explored in distinctive ways. In this exhibition I revive 19th Century photographic processes where glass serves numerous technical applications. I also draw inspiration from greenhouse windows; mirrors; the Crystal Palace; recycled glass-plate negatives and a bohemian crystal lusterware – the antique glass prism, a reminder of Isaac Newton’s own experiments with refracted light.
Bio: Jane Brown is a visual artist and the Director of the Visual Cultures Resource Centre at the University of Melbourne, where she also lectures in the history of photography and photography conservation. In 2013, she was recognized with the Art and Australia/Credit Suisse Contemporary Art Award and in 2016 was shortlisted for the Basil Sellers Art Prize. Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Southeast Museum of Photography, Florida, USA. She is currently curating the exhibition A Picture Atlas: Art reproductions in the Visual Cultures Resource Centre’s photographic collection.
http://janebrownphotography.com
Rommel A Dino, Glass Manufacturers Association of the Philippines Inc. (GMAPI)
Paper title: Education at the Heart of the International Year Celebration in the Philippines
Abstract: Nelson Mandela once said that “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the World”. Among the goals of the International Year of Glass 2022 is to build worldwide educational alliances through activities aimed at science and engineering for young people and to demonstrate through joint meetings that glass science and glass arts are effective means of uniting us while respecting our diversity. With these guiding principles, GMAPI developed programs to celebrate the International Year with focus on Education at the core of all our activities, targeting specific age groups from grade school, college and professional audiences. The talk will give an overview and share the six (6) International Commission on Glass (ICG) seed-funded approved projects implemented in the country: Arts Painting on Glass session for grade schoolers, Glass-is-Cool Series, a glass container manufacturing process appreciation webinar for engineering college students, Cuadro Anexo de Vidrio, a digital glass arts painting competition for college fine arts students, Project BRIDGES, and Project Glass is Best, which will all culminate in the awarding of The Emerald Glass Excellence Award during the IYOG 2022 Philippines National Conference Event in November this month.
Education is indeed the best way to reach and instruct the younger generations, raising their awareness of sustainable development goals and how to achieve them, starting from small changes in everyday life. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #4 on Quality Education more importantly mentions that Quality Education is the foundation for sustainable development. Inclusive education can equip local communities with the tools required to develop innovative solutions to the world’s pressing problems.
Bio: Rommel is a Mechanical Engineer by profession who earned his degree from The University of Santo Tomas (UST) in Manila with masteral units in MBA from ATENEO Graduate School of Business and earned units in Post Graduate Diploma Course in Supply Chain Management (PGDCSCM) from De La Salle University. He is also the External Vice-President of the UST Engineering Alumni Association Inc. (USTEAAI).
Rommel is currently the Glass Business Planning Manager of SMYPC’s Glass Business Office and has been appointed by the Glass Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (GMAPI) as its IYOG 2022 Philippines National Program Director. GMAPI is a member of the ASEAN Federation of Glass Manufacturers and the International Commission on Glass (ICG) Regional Organization 16 (RO16).
Amanda Dunsmore, National Gallery of Victoria
Paper title: Marion Mahony Griffin’s leaded window for the Unitarian Church of All Souls, Evanston, Illinois. A significant new acquisition for the National Gallery of Victoria.
Abstract: Marion Mahony Griffin is well known for her work on the design of Canberra alongside her husband, Walter Burley Griffin, however the early years of her career in Chicago, particularly those prior to her marriage, are less well known. She trained as an architect and was the first woman to practice in Chicago. For around fourteen years she worked in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright, producing highly refined architectural renderings and designs in the Prairie School style, of which Wright was the leading proponent. In 1902, while working for Wright, Mahony received the commission to design the Unitarian Church of All Souls in Evanston, Illinois. This is the only building firmly attributed to Mahony. Around 1960, the church was demolished and very little appears to have been salvaged. The National Gallery of Victoria recently acquired a large leaded window from the church, one of only two windows known to have survived. The window’s design and colour palette reveal Mahony’s sophisticated aesthetic while also evincing strong affinities with the Prairie School style. This paper will look at Mahony’s window designs for the All Souls Church within the context of the Prairie School style and her work in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright.
Bio: Amanda Dunsmore is Senior Curator, International Decorative Arts and Antiquities, at the National Gallery of Victoria. She has a background in Egyptology and worked for many years as a ceramic specialist in Egypt. Her research interests include eighteenth-century English architecture and interiors, in particular the work of James Wyatt, and early 20th century design and the rise of modernism. She has curated numerous exhibitions including Bugatti: Carlo, Rembrandt, Ettore, Jean (2009), Japonisme: Japan and the Birth of Modern Art (2018) and Spectrum: An Exploration of Colour (2021-22).
Geoffrey Edwards, Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society
Keynote conversation: Reflections on a celebrated Glass Collection at the National Gallery of Victoria
Bio: Geoffrey Edwards is a freelance curatorial consultant, lecturer and writer. Vice President of the Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society (ADFAS), he was a former Director of the Geelong Art Gallery, one of Australia’s oldest regional galleries. Prior to that appointment, he held Senior Curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Victoria where he was in charge of the collections of International and Australian glass and sculpture. His professional affiliations are extensive and have included the Winston Churchill Trust (he is a former Churchill Fellow), the Public Art Committee of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council and Craft Australia. He is a Trustee of the Colin Holden Charitable Trust and a Trustee of The Johnston Collection house museum.
Rebecca Edwards, National Gallery of Australia
Bio: Dr Rebecca Edwards is Curator, Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Over the last decade, she has held multiple curatorial roles across the National Gallery of Victoria (2015-2018) and the National Gallery of Australia (2012-2015, 2019-2022) where she has curated and contributed to numerous exhibitions and publications on Australian Art. From 2019 to 2021, she oversaw the Australian Decorative Arts collection at the National Gallery of Australia. Rebecca has been a Director of Canberra Glassworks since 2019.
Dierdre Feeney, University of South Australia
Paper title: Glass, light and the projected image in optical image system artworks
Abstract: For centuries, glass has been intertwined with light and the projected image: from hand-ground and polished lenses in the seventeenth century magic lantern, to data projectors and ultra-thin nano lenses in contemporary imaging devices. Glass is a key material component of optical image systems. Its form, finish and chemical make-up determine how light is transferred from its source to the image-light we view on our screens. However, due to its optical transparency and consequent propensity for scattering light, the glass components in these systems are often hidden from view. This paper will detail a selection of optical image system artworks that I have developed to explore the materiality of image-making. In these systems, optical glass is the central component. I will discuss how I combine historical image technologies with contemporary fabrication methods to produce the various optical components for my image systems. Finally, I will detail how and why, instead of the system being hidden from view, the elements of my optical devices are exposed, bringing attention to the materiality and processes of how we see and experience the projected image.
Bio: Deirdre Feeney is a visual artist with research interests in optical image systems as perceptual tools for generating wonder and awareness of technologically mediated experience. Deirdre engages in cross-disciplinary collaboration with physicists and engineers to explore and realise her ideas. Her background in glass-making and the projected moving image were pivotal to her current practice, encompassing material and digital methods to create her optical image systems. Deirdre is a Lecturer of Contemporary Art at the University of South Australia and a member of the Australian Research Centre for Interactive and Virtual Environments.
Peter French
Keynote Conversation: Glass and Spirituality
Abstract: Peter French, Sue McPhee-Wright and David Wright will explore a range of spiritual themes that are interpreted in stained glass across different religions and faiths, but focus on David’s recent suite of windows for St John’s Anglican Church, Flinders. .
Bio: The Reverend Dr Peter French is an Anglican priest, now at St John’s Church, Toorak (Vic). he was previously Episcopalian Chaplain at Princeton University, where he also taught in the program of Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy. Peter is also an art historian who has written on the Bible and modern art, Australian religious iconography post-1945, and the Christian religious iconography of German artist, Otto Dix. His doctorate was published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing as The Life, Art and Religious Iconography of David Wright, in 2015.
Aimee Frodsham, Canberra Glassworks
Paper title: 38 Languages – Maree Clarke, Broached Commissions and Canberra Glassworks
Abstract: Maree Clarke is a Mutti Mutti, Yorta Yorta, BoonWurrung and Wemba Wemba woman based in Melbourne. She has been working with Canberra Glassworks since 2019. Clarke’s most recent piece, 38 Languages, is a series of public artworks due for completion in November 2022. These works are installed in the architecturally designed colonnade at Wesley Place, 140 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne.
The artwork presented within this discussion was developed by Broached Commissions and Maree Clarke, incorporating a glass sculpture into the skylight within the colonnade. This glass sculpture comprises seven highly detailed cast glass branches suspended in the space, allowing light to be caught and held within the piece. In addition to the natural light, specialist lighting further enhances the work. A delicate suspension system makes these branches appear as though they are floating in the skylight space.
In this presentation, Aimee Frodsham will discuss the collaborative fabrication, engineering and installation processes involved in this project.
Through projects like this, Canberra Glassworks hopes that more like-minded designers, architects, and developers will be encouraged to use hand-made glass within public spaces.
Bio: Aimee Frodsham is the Artistic Director at Canberra Glassworks, a role she has held since 2018. Supported by the dedicated staff, she oversees the artist program and commissioning areas, working closely with a team of skilled glassmakers.
After graduating from ANU in the late 90s, Aimee moved to London, where she worked at the V&A Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich, and Tate. Since returning to Australia, she has embedded herself in the community at Canberra Glassworks. Her open and collaborative approach to glassmaking has enabled major projects for Patricia Piccinini, Maree Clarke, Tony Albert and Lucy Simpson.
Aimee and Maree Clarke have been working together since 2019. They have successfully completed major projects for NGV, MCA, University of Melbourne and NMA.
Mary Iles
Paper title: My Connection to Glass and Lighthouses
Abstract: The Chance family goes back generations but more recently to 1815 when Robert Lucas Chance became a glass merchant. This involved many trips to France where he formed alliances with French glass manufacturers. He ran into financial difficulty and was rescued in 1832 by his brother, William. His son, James Timmins Chance became a partner in 1839. James Timmins’ greatest achievements were in the design and manufacture of lighthouse lenses and machinery.
Georges Bontemps was a director of a French glass manufacturer and in 1848 was employed by the Chance company. Bontemps helped advise on the Fresnel optics that Chance Bros manufactured for use in lighthouses. In addition to Bontemps, the Stevensons, David Brewster, and Michael Faraday all helped Chance become one of the biggest manufacturers of many different types and applications of glass in the late 1800s.
Up until the 1970s, Chance not only made Fresnel lens and plate glass but airport beacons, domestic glassware, fluorescent lighting, fog horns, signals, laboratory tubing and microscopic slides, petrol pump globes, stained glass windows, TV tubes and more. 2022 is the International Year of Glass, and we have submitted the Fresnel lens to the jury evaluating the Seven Glass Wonders of the World. We will have to wait until the closing ceremony in Japan in December to hear the outcome.
Bio: Grand-daughter of Sir Hugh Chance and an amateur pharologist! She was born in UK arriving in Australia as a hippy in 1973. She has had an extensive career in marketing and now, retired, concentrates of learning about her Chance family by going down endless online rabbit holes and visiting lighthouses when she can.
David Jolly
Paper title: Reverse Painting on Glass
Abstract: David Jolly’s paintings draw on the specificity of time and place, merging documentary and realist traditions to capture the nuanced particularities of memory. Working primarily from his own photographs, Jolly translates these images onto glass using an approach that reverses the usual convention of image construction in painting: foreground details are first laid onto the glass with the mid and background details rendered around and on top of them. Jolly’s technique results in the painting being read through the flat, screen-like surface of the glass’s recto and, although they are rarely seen, the built-up back of the verso. The materiality of Jolly’s technique bridges the relationship between photography and painting succinctly; the original photograph frames and captures the memory in an instant while its translation through painting allows this memory to be relived in the temporal space of the studio. Jolly completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian
College of the Arts, Melbourne (1992). In 2015, the Australian War Memorial commissioned him to produce work based on a visit to Gallipoli for the ANZAC Centenary.
Bio:
As an artist, Jolly presents his observations of the world around him, at home and abroad, through his long-established practice of painting on the reverse side of the glass. He completed a Bachelor of Fine Art at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1992 and has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally since. His works feature in many public collections, including those of the British Museum, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, Buxton Contemporary and the University of Melbourne. He has undertaken several residences including a year’s residency at Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia and an Australia Council studio in Barcelona.
Painting. More painting [catalogue]
Martyn Jolly, Honorary Associate Professor, School of Art and Design, ANU
Paper title: Glass as a hidden inter-connector
Abstract: For the last seven or so years I have collaborated with various performers, artists and historians to develop a series of magic lantern shows at different locations around Australia. The process of wrestling with my authentic magic lanterns, some 140 years old, and my collection of glass magic lantern slides, of approximately the same vintage, in order to produce entertaining shows for contemporary audiences, has led me to think afresh about the role of glass as a material. Not only was it a transparent substrate for either painted, printed or photographic images, it was also a working physical component in a mechanical apparatus producing animated optical spectacles for audiences. It was a kind of ‘hidden inter-connector’, linking industrially manufactured technologies to individual human experience through developing cultural forms of entertainment. I will reflect on the tour of the Pepper’s Ghost illusion through Australia and then literally deconstruct the brass, mahogany and glass of the magic lantern and the magic lantern slide to identify the complex and crucial — but often just assumed as neutral — role of glass in the nineteenth century culture of the image.
Bio: Martyn Jolly is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Australian National University School of Art and Design. He led the ARC Discovery Project Heritage in the Limelight: The Magic Lantern in Australia and the World. He has developed a series of collaborative magic lantern performances around Australia. With Elisa deCourcy he co-edited The Magic Lantern at Work: Witnessing, Persuading, Experiencing and Connecting and co-authored Empire, Early Photography and Spectacle: the Global Career of Showman Daguerreotypist J. W. Newland. With Daniel Palmer he co-authored Installation View: Australian Photography Exhibitions 1848-2020. He is currently researching colonial optical spectacle in Australia.
Dena Kahan
Paper title: Glass Gardens
Abstract: Dena Kahan, painter, will discuss the ways in which she uses glass in her work and why it is such a rich and complex subject for painting. The transparency and reflective qualities of glass provide the means of exploring ambiguities of space and scale, and tensions between figuration and abstraction, reality and fantasy. This paper will be focusing on work inspired by the famed Glass Flowers in the Harvard Natural History Museum. These creations, fragile yet enduring, sitting uneasily between art and science, nature and culture, embody the paradoxical nature of glass.
Bio: Dena Kahan is a Melbourne-based artist with a background in Art History and art conservation. She has completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts, and a Master of Arts at Federation University. Dena has been exhibiting for 30 years and her work is represented in the collections of the Museum of Victoria, The Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne, Town Hall Gallery, Boroondara, and numerous private collections in Australia and abroad, including Bundanon Trust and the Lyceum Club, Melbourne.
Donna Kennedy, GLAAS Inc
Paper title: First Peoples’ Potential to Develop the Art of Glass
Abstract: Since August 2022, Glaas Inc has been delivering a program of free workshops to First Nations’ artists in various glass techniques including leadlighting, kiln formed glass, copperfoiling, stained glass painting and sandblasting.
A range of workshops will run until early December 2022 and recommence in February 2023. For those in the group wanting to progress their work in glass, free studio time will be available from early 2023. Glaas Inc will organise an exhibition of the students work to be displayed at the Australian Centre for Glass Design in Prahran during Naidoc Week in 2023.
Some wonderful First Nations artists, such as Yhonnie Scarce, Maree Clarke, Tony Albert and others have designed great works in glass, many of which are made by glass makers under direction from the artists.
GLAAS Inc offers First Nations artists the opportunity to learn glass techniques and to create glass works by understanding and experiencing the many ways in which the material can be utilised. We have current glass artists and industry members committed to acting as mentors in the program, and who look forward to supporting the development of the artists in the program.
Bio: Donna ran a leadlight studio until 2005 and was Executive Director of Architectural Glass Design Australia from 2008 to 2015. In her time with AGDA, Donna organised several exhibitions (including Glass@FedSquare), was involved in artistic and industry-based initiatives, and obtained a Federal Government grant which allowed 58 Australian glass makers to obtain their qualification in 2012. In 2015, Donna started GLAAS Inc with Bronwyn Hughes, with the stated aim of developing the use of glass in Australia in art and architecture in both the built and natural environments. Donna is currently its Executive Director; she is also Melbourne Polytechnic’s Glass Course Co-ordinator.
Susan Kellett, RSL Queensland
Paper title: Waller’s War: Spirituality and the Hall of Memory
Abstract: Mervyn “Napier” Waller was one of Australia’s leading stained glass artists in the 20th century. In 1937, he received the commission to design the stained glass windows of the Hall of Memory, the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. While the men creating the Hall of Memory perceived it to be a secular space, Waller held a different view. A master of symbolism, Waller wove layers of religious symbolism into his three windows. By doing so, he located the sacrifice of the men and nurses of the Australian Imperial Force and Royal Australian Navy as akin to that of Christ’s.
Bio: Susan Kellett is a historian whose doctoral thesis examined the image of the Australian Army nurse in the commemorative stained-glass windows of WWI and WWII. She currently works as RSL Queensland’s Senior Manager: Well-being and continues to research Napier Waller and the RSL in Queensland in her spare time.
Sarah King
Paper title: Recycling glass into Art
Abstract: Sarah’s presentation highlights the works she has created in her glass arts
journey and her embrace of using recycled glass to create wonderful thought-
provoking art.
Her presentation also shares her next steps and aspirations for the West Coast
community to become an exemplar place of recycled glass creations to
celebrate the community, the environment as well and bring with it a deeper social and environmental message.
Bio: Sarah King is a glass artist residing on the West Coast of Tasmania. Sarah has
her Master’s in Fine Art and Design majoring in Glass.
Sarah has undertaken a journey in the discovery and use of glass especially
recycled glass to highlight the fragility of the ecosystem and to depict in her art
forms deep meanings regarding climate change and threats to local species
from human activity. Effectively Sarah is using her artwork as a canvas
storytelling board to highlight deep environmental messages.
Glass has not conventionally been associated with Environmental art, however,
Sarah has both stretched the boundaries of this convention as well as
undertaking experimental approaches to exploring the diversity in the use of
and techniques capable of being undertaken to express her art messages in
this medium.
These messages are as poignant as the artwork themselves- capturing the light
and depth of glass as well as the strength and fragility inherent in glass art
installations and our world heritage forests.
Tony Koutsonikolas, Maple Glass Printing
Paper Title: Glass 3D Printing and Sustainability
Abstract: We can now 3D Print with glass, but what does this mean for glass and its future? Together, we can find out.
3D Printing has become a part of many industries, with many materials being used from sugar to bioprinting! Maple Glass Printing has developed a 3D printing and recycling technology that recycles glass into… well, whatever is intended. Artists, architects and researchers are among the first to adopt the technologies. From artistic displays to functional parts, optical research and, perhaps one day soon, structural components in buildings, 3D printing glass has the potential to change the way we interact with glass.
Digital design and the freedom of 3D printing allows one to produce parts that are more complex, customised and purpose fit. Different colours, materials, thickness, textures and transparencies are all possible.
The best part is, we use recycled glass and our melting process uses less power than a hair dryer! Creating sustainable practices is critical to our future, and at Maple Glass we aim to inspire and practice this positive change to create a greener future.
In this presentation, we will introduce you to the world of 3D printing and glass filament recycling.
Bio: Tony Koutsonikolas designed and built the first prototype glass 3D printer, multiple commercial machines, completed over 500 3D prints and connected with many people / organisations in industry including customers and collaborators. Tony has a Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) from Monash University. Prior to MGP, Tony founded a 3D printing company, providing training and 3D printing equipment to schools and businesses. Tony was the former lead of a robotics course at Melbourne Polytechnic.
Catherine Kovesi
Paper title: “To see a world in a grain of sand”: the global lives of Venetian trade beads
Abstract: The popular image of Venetian glass is one dominated by shimmering chandeliers and other improbable confections produced through acrobatics of molten virtuosity in the masculine world of the fornaci on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon. But impressive as such items are, they were not readily transportable and remained an item of consumption only for the elite of Venice and Europe. They were not at the core of the Venetian trade in glass. The wealth of this trade was instead contained in tiny seed beads, or conterie – infinitely transportable, and infinitely desired by peoples across the globe, from the newly encountered Americas to the heart of Africa. This trade was one that depended on the humble, largely domestic work of women; the so-called impiraresse, or bead stringers. This paper will follow the bead trail from its point of origin to locations far from the imaginings of the women who strung them, thereby revealing the many lives of a tiny bead of glass.
Bio: Catherine Kovesi is Head of the Discipline of History at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies. She has published widely on the debates surrounding luxury consumption in early modern Italy to the present, on Florentine and Venetian social history, and the history of women religious in Australia. She is on the Editorial Board of Brepols Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies series and is co-General Editor of Bloomsbury’s forthcoming six-volume Cultural History of Luxury. She takes students from Melbourne to the city of Venice and curates bespoke cultural events in the city.
Joan Barclay Lloyd, La Trobe University
Paper title: Magnificat: reflections on some stained-glass windows in Melbourne churches
Abstract: Most nineteenth-century churches in Melbourne were built in the Gothic Revival style, looking back to medieval buildings, which were decorated with stained-glass windows. It was, therefore, natural for nineteenth-century Melbourne churches to be filled with images in glass. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century patrons of ecclesiastical buildings brought stained glass from overseas or had windows made in Melbourne. In this paper, I shall look at the iconography and sequence of the windows in the Lady Chapel of St Francis’s church in the City (following the perceptive comments of Caroline Miley) and compare them with the various cycles of stained glass in the Jesuit Immaculate Conception church in Hawthorn, which displays successive programmes of Marian imagery. Whereas the windows at St Francis’s were all made by the firm of John Hardman and Co. in Birmingham, the stained glass in the Hawthorn church came from local Melbourne artists, such as Ferguson and Urie, Brooks Robinson, and William Montgomery, as well as from Mayer of Munich, Hardman of Birmingham, and Richard King of the Harry Clarke Studios in Dublin. The iconography in both churches is connected to Marian doctrine and devotion as expressed in Sacred Scripture, Apocryphal writings, liturgical feast days, and popular devotion.
Bio: After teaching art history at La Trobe University from 1980-2006, Joan Barclay Lloyd retired. She continues to do research on medieval art and architecture, and recently published a book on Dominicans and Franciscans in medieval Rome. Besides these studies, she has published a history of St Mary’s Parish, Thornbury; an article on the architecture of the Immaculate Conception Church, Hawthorn; and a study of the stained-glass windows of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Joan is a Fellow of the Australian Academy for the Humanities; a Research Fellow of the British School at Rome; and a member of the Pierre Goursat Institute.
Robyn McKenzie, Australian National University
Paper title: Kimberley Points in the Museum
Abstract: Kimberley Points – a ‘Kimberley Point’ – is the name given to a type of finely worked spear head, symmetrical, oval-shaped, bifacial blades with characteristic serrated teeth, made in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. While commonly made of stone, they are most renowned for being made from non-traditional found materials: coloured bottle glass and white insulator ceramic. Kimberley Points were popular among collectors in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and are well-represented in our collecting institutions.
This paper looks at the display of Kimberley Points in Australian museums, where they are treated in a markedly different way to the display of stone tools generally – until very recently considered ungiving subjects for exhibition. On this evidence, I argue that it is the qualities of the material from which they are made — the translucence, crystalline form, quality and variety of colour — that plays the major role in the ‘captivation‘ and ‘enchantment’ in our appreciation of these objects today.
Bio: Robyn McKenzie is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Australian National University working on the multi-team project ‘Beyond Reconciliation: Truth-Telling for Indigenous Wellbeing and the Health of the Nation’. She has research interests in First Nations collections, museums, and the making of value. Since working on ‘Talking About Stones’ (2016-2020), a project that focussed on First Nations’ stone tools collections in local small-town museums in the Riverina district of NSW, she has had a sustained interest in how this material is presented in museum contexts. See https://cdhr-projects.anu.edu.au/talkingaboutstones
Sue McPhee-Wright
Keynote Conversation: Glass and Spirituality
Abstract: Peter French, Sue McPhee-Wright and David Wright will explore a range of spiritual themes that are interpreted in stained glass across different religions and faiths, but focus on David’s recent suite of windows for St John’s Anglican Church, Flinders.
Bio: Sue McPhee-Wright and David have been together for more than 55 years- a lasting and productive partnership. Sue holds two Master of Arts degrees, one entitled ‘Perceptions of God’ awarded through the Centre for Study of Religion and Theology at Monash University. She also holds a Bachelor of Divinity.
Sue spent the majority of her career as a psychologist in Melbourne schools but more recently, she was among the pioneer women to be ordained as priests in the Anglican Church (1998) and has since served congregations and communities in Williamstown, Malvern and Flinders.
Peter Malatt, Six Degrees Architects
Paper title: Designed glass with Six Degrees
Abstract: Six Degrees architects has used coloured, textured and leadlight glass in projects over a 25-year period, many in collaboration with Tony Hall and Azez Glass. The paper will share a selection of these projects along with a current project with Nadine Keegan and describe the design process.
Bio: Peter is an architect and one of the founding directors of Six Degrees. He has been a project leader for many of the large projects completed by Six Degrees, who are known for placemaking, sustainability and people-centred design. In 2013, he was elected to National Council of the AIA and he served as Victorian Chapter president in 2014–15.
Matthew Martin, University of Melbourne
Paper title: Murano Revival Glass in the NGV
Abstract: The National Gallery of Victoria holds a significant collection of Venetian glass, dating from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. Interestingly, one of the earliest important acquisitions made by the Trustees of the Melbourne Art Gallery was a large group of historical Venetian glass purchased in Venice in 1871 from Abbot Vincenzo Zanetti, founder of the Murano glass museum and one of the fathers of the nineteenth-century Murano revival. Subsequent acquisitions of Murano revival glass in 1874, and then in 1881, the latter from the Melbourne International Exhibition, make the NGV’s holdings of Murano glass an important datelined archive of Murano revival glass forms produced by the Salviati firm, with the potential to contribute to clarifying the sometimes confusing chronologies for the production of these works.
Bio: Matthew Martin is Lecturer in Art History and Curatorship in the School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne. From 2006 to 2019 he was a curator in the department of International Decorative Arts and Antiquities in the National Gallery of Victoria. He was a curator of the 2019 exhibition Liquid Light: 500 Years of Venetian Glass.
Christopher Menz
Paper title: Federation at the Stock Exchange
Abstract: One of the lesser-known commemorations for Australia’s Federation in 1901 is the Morris & Co. stained-glass window, Federation, made for the Stock Exchange of Adelaide and still located there. The window was commissioned for the staircase of the new building by Adelaide businessman, George Brookman, who also commissioned two major tapestries from the firm. It is a composite design of Edward Burne-Jones and J.H. Dearle and depicts the Empire upon which the sun never sets: Britannia at the centre, flanked by personifications of the dominions – Australia, India, Africa, Canada.
Most Morris glass in Australia was made for churches. This is the only example for a temple of capitalism. Given William Morris’s socialist beliefs, a stock exchange seems an incongruous location for a major Morris & Co. window. However, several of the firm’s major clients became rich through share speculation, as indeed did Morris himself. Morris may have spent his life ‘ministering to the swinish luxury of the rich’ but he was perfectly aware that without the rich his ambitions would have been compromised. It was commissions for stained glass and tapestry that sustained the firm in the early twentieth century.
Bio: Christopher Menz is an art consultant based in Melbourne and is an art valuer, development consultant, and cultural tour leader. Prior to his current roles he had a career in Australian art museums spanning nearly thirty years. He is a former director of the Art Gallery of South Australia. Before that he was a curator, specialising in decorative arts, and worked at the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of South Australia, and National Gallery of Victoria. He has published and lectured extensively on Australian and European decorative arts, notably on the design work of William Morris, and curated numerous exhibitions.
Caroline Miley
Paper title: Anima Mundi in the Antipodes: Christian Waller’s spiritual Evolution
Abstract: Theosophy resonated with many early modernist artists and inspired both Symbolists and abstract painters such as Wassily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka and Piet Mondrian, but there is little specifically Theosophical art. Christian Waller’s oeuvre is only equalled in this respect by a few Scandinavian artists such as Hilma af Klint, Ilona Harima and Einar Jónsson. There are inherent problems in programmatic art which Christian avoided, as her style and idiosyncratic, syncretic iconography were always evolving. Her print masterpiece is The Great Breath (1932), a unique systematic exposition of the cosmogony in Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. The most significant concept Christian derived from Theosophy was that of the agency of the object. A window was not merely a decorative or symbolic object but a dynamo which concentrated an invisible spiritual force and disseminated it; an object of spiritual power which would act upon all who saw it, hence an agent in the transformation of Australia into a more spiritualised society. This presentation focusses on her brilliant triptych Penitence, Pardon and Peace (1935), discovered by the author in the 1990s. Analysis reveals that the subject is identical with Piet Mondrian’s 1911 work Evolution, depicting the three states of the human person described in Blavatsky’s seminal Isis Unveiled. As such it is unique in Australian art and a work of global significance.
Bio: Dr Caroline Miley has had a lifetime interest in decorative arts, especially stained glass. She was Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne) and Curator of the College Collection. She consults for heritage architects and has published a number of pioneering books on the Arts and Crafts Movement in Australia and related subjects (The Arts Among the Handicrafts: the Arts and Crafts Movement in Victoria 1889-1929, St Lawrence Press, 2nd ed 2020; Beautiful and Useful: the Arts and Crafts Movement in Tasmania, Queen Victoria Museum, Launceston, 1987; Trinity College Chapel: an Appreciation, Council of Trinity College, Melbourne, 1997) as well as social criticism and literary historical fiction.
Andrew Montana, Australian National University
Paper title: Lucien Henry’s Oceania in stained glass – 1889
Abstract: The vividly coloured stained-glass windows designed by artist and art instructor Lucien Henry, representing Captain James Cook and a female allegory of New South Wales, respectively, remain rich, architectural components, lighting the upper corridors of Centennial Hall in Sydney’s Town Hall complex since 1889. Manufactured by the building and glass firm Goodlet & Smith in Sydney, the windows are primary examples of Henry’s visionary imagination and may be seen as significant participants in contemporary design inspired by Australian nature, during a time when debates about Australia’s potential Federation increased. Henry referred to his allegory of New South Wales as the ‘Australia’ window. This presentation examines the iconography and suggests some wider cultural references in Henry’s Centennial Hall windows, and places them in the context of his related work and philosophies. Further, it gives likely reasons for his commission to design them, in competition with other Australian stained-glass companies.
Bio: An Honorary Research associate, Dr Andrew Montana was a senior lecturer in art and design for almost twenty years at the Australian National University. In 2013, he was the curator of the exhibition Australia Revealed: Decorative Arts from The Australiana Fund and contributed a chapter and essay entries in the Fund’s book Collecting for the Nation (2017). The author of books, chapters and articles, he lectures on and engages with the intersection of art, architecture, design and the decorative arts in his ongoing research. Most recently, Andrew contributed two chapters on the Australian decorators Lyon, Cottier & Co. to the book Daniel Cottier: Designer, Decorator, Dealer, published with Yale through the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2021. He was recently awarded the Ivan Barko award for his published research in the French Australian Review.
Fiona Moore, GLAAS Inc
Paper title: Contemporary glass beyond the white cube: Glass@VillaAlba
Fiona Moore has worked in the museum and gallery sector for over twenty years at the Commonwealth, State, and local level in the areas of collections and exhibitions management, registration, project management and collection relocations at the National Gallery of Victoria, National Gallery of Australia, Arts Centre Melbourne, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne. She was the inaugural Coordinator, Object-Based Learning and Collections Management for the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. She has also worked as a research assistant, tutor, subject-coordinator, and guest lecturer in Art History and Art Curatorship at that University. She is currently working as a freelance Museum and Gallery Consultant and is Board Vice Chair and Director Exhibitions and Operations at GLAAS Inc, and a member of the Board of the Villa Alba Museum. She curated the Glass@VillaAlba exhibition with Donna Kennedy in October 2022.
Tom Nicholson
Paper title: Towards a glass monument
Abstract: Towards a glass monument is a large-scale permanent stained glass window work created with stained glass artisan Geoffrey Wallace and commissioned by the University of Melbourne for the restored Old Quad, the University’s first building.
The work originated in two remarkable (lost) drawings from the early history of the north wing of the Old Quad, by the artists Arthur Bartholomew (1833–1909) and Ludwig Becker (1808–1861). These drawings both describe two Mesozoic ferns fossilised in sandstone (Gangamopteris angustifolia and Gangamopteris spatulata).
Towards a glass monument responds to the presence of Napier Waller’s Leckie Window at the University of Melbourne, a complex work dedicated to allegorising creation itself. The university context of the Leckie Window richly links a problem in art to a problem of learning: How do things become? How do we become? How does one process of becoming precipitate another, and in doing so make us belong to one another, and to the world around us? Towards a glass monument attempts to respond to the legacy of the Leckie Window as well as to these abiding questions about what comes into being at a university.
Bio: Tom Nicholson (b. 1973) was trained in drawing, a medium which he has used to rethink the relationships between propositions and monuments, and between writing and images.
His recent work includes: Public meeting, 2019, a survey of his work at ACCA, Melbourne; untitled (seven monuments), 2019, a collaborative permanent public work created over six years with senior Wurundjeri elder Aunty Joy Murphy AO and Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones marking the original boundaries of Coranderrk Aboriginal station. In 2018, Sternberg Press published the monograph Tom Nicholson: Lines towards another, edited by Amelia Barikin and Helen Hughes.
He is represented by Milani Gallery. www.tomn.net
Pierre Palayan, University of Melbourne
Paper title: Venetian Glass mosaic in St Paul’ Cathedral
Abstract: The paper examines glass as a creative and innovative medium in art history by focusing on the nineteenth-century figurative Venetian glass mosaics that decorate the reredos of St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne. Installed between 1880–1891, they are more than just an aesthetic triumph and a distinct architectural feature of the building’s interior: they also represent an excellent example of industrially manufactured prefabricated decoration that could be assembled at the building site. They were executed by The Venice and Murano Glass and Mosaic Company in Venice to the designs of Clayton and Bell in London before being shipped to the Colony of Victoria in Australia.
The paper will argue that the ensemble of the reredos with its modern prefabricated mosaics can be interpreted to have functioned as more than a combination of modern Venetian mosaic art-manufacture and British historicist ornamentation. Rather, it represents the confrontation between Britain’s waning optimism for modern prefabricated mosaic and her youthful colony’s ecclesiastical enthusiasm towards this new form of wall decoration. As such, the reredos at St Paul’s can be understood as one of the earliest re-evaluation of prefabricated nineteen century Venetian mosaics in the Colony of Victoria.
Bio: Pierre Palayan’s research interest includes nineteenth-century revival of Venetian glass mosaics in Melbourne churches and art museums. The focus of his Master’s thesis was the figurative mosaics that adorn the reredos above the high altar at St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne and his research explores the cultural aesthetics of eighteenth-century European porcelain, focusing on small scale porcelain sculptures produced in Switzerland during the period 1760s and 1770s.
Wendy Ritson, Menzies College, Wyndham, New Zealand
Paper title: Overview of Glass Education at Menzies College, Southland, New Zealand
Abstract: Menzies College is a Year 7 to 13 school in the small South Island town of Wyndham in Southland, New Zealand. Glass is taught under the New Zealand Technology Curriculum with a focus on fusing, recycling, reusing, and health and safety practices. Students are given the opportunity in Year 9 to make fused glass jewellery and trinkets. In Year 10, students move onto making mini stained-glass windows from scrap glass. They also experiment with making bowls from shattered safety/tempered glass and recycling glass bottles. A combination of interest from parents and locals, and the United Nations IYOG 2022 led to securing funding from Creative Communities (Invercargill) and holding a series of successful evening classes. There has been more demand for the adult evening classes and we are looking at options for continuing the community evening classes next year.
Bio: Wendy was born in the North of England and moved to New Zealand over 30 years ago. She gained her Diploma in Craft Design at Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, and completed her degree in Craft Design (Glass) at Monash University, Melbourne. After completing her Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching (Secondary) she has taught NCEA Visual Art, Photography, Design and Junior Hard Materials Technology (wood, metal and glass) at a variety of schools around the South Island of New Zealand. She is currently employed as a Visual Arts and Technology Teacher at Menzies College, Southland, New Zealand.
Beverley Sherry, University of Sydney
Annual William Montgomery Lecture: Australia’s Hidden Stained Glass Windows
Abstract: This lecture acknowledges the wide range of Australia’s stained glass, which encompasses work in churches, houses, and public buildings, but its particular focus is on windows in residences. Hidden from public view, some are highly distinguished artistically – all are historically and culturally significant, telling diverse stories of Australia and Australians at different times and places. As part of the lecture series named for William Montgomery (1850-1927), the focus of this lecture also honours Montgomery, who was himself an eloquent advocate for the use of stained glass in residences.
Bio: Dr Beverley Sherry is an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney, formerly a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Queensland. The lecture is based on her pioneering book Australia’s Historic Stained Glass (1991) and uses PowerPoint with photographs by Douglass Baglin. More recently, Beverley has related stained glass to her main academic interest, the poet John Milton. She has documented numerous portraits of Milton in stained glass as well as rare representations/translations of ‘Paradise Lost’ in stained glass. Her work is published in the UK journal Vidimus 2019 and as chapters in Global Milton and Visual Art (Lexington Books, 2021), Milton in Strasbourg (Peter Lang, 2022), and Milton Across Borders and Media (forthcoming 2023, Oxford University Press).
David Smith
Film title: The Story of the Peacock Dome
Introduction: It’s not often that you get the chance to follow the inside story of how a glass masterpiece comes into being. Over months, film maker Dr David Smith captured the deeply moving story of how the loss of a beloved daughter was translated into a stunning glass dome, featuring a highly detailed painting of a peacock, with tail feathers in full display.
The technical challenges in painting the peacock onto a hemispherical surface comprising several hundred glass panels were immense. David was able to film the entire process as glass artist Mark Howard and designer Philip Parker brought the concept to life. Mark’s explanation of how each issue was solved gives rare and fascinating insights into the mind, skills, and imagination that are the behind-the-scenes essence of the world of the glass artist. The video The Story of the Peacock Dome offers a rare opportunity to witness the creation of a glass masterpiece.
Bio: David Smith, PhD BSc (Hons) FRSA, is a writer, director, cameraman and editor, specialising in the production of videos designed for professionals in education, health, medicine, community and the environment. Apart from publishing more than 35 scientific papers in international journals, David has produced and presented more than twenty broadcast documentaries, and hosted 77 half-hour episodes of his weekly national television series, Earthwatch on ABCTV for two years.
Over the last few years, David has collaborated with GLAAS Inc to record young glass artists and explore their ideas and practices, and is currently working on production of a documentary- Let the Light Shine – which examines commemorations of war service through stained glass.
Jason Smith, Geelong Gallery
Keynote Conversation title: Blanche Tilden – Ripple Effect: A 25-year Survey
Abstract: In the context of a nationally touring survey exhibition, Jason Smith and Blanche Tilden will discuss the key themes that predominate in Tilden’s singular jewellery made of glass and metal: circularity, geometric form, repetition and gradation; lightness; and precision and mechanical movement. They will discuss how, by abstracting and translating the visual language and materials of architecture, the built environment and the everyday into jewellery, Tilden’s work explores real and symbolic aspects of the material culture of our time and place. And how Tilden’s unique repurposing of industrial and salvaged glass proposes redefinitions of the value and meaning of the jewellery object.
Bio: Jason Smith is the Director and CEO of Geelong Gallery, where recently he has curated major exhibitions of the work of Blanche Tilden, Jacky Redgate, and Fred Williams. He was previously Curatorial Manager of Australian Art at the Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art; Director & CEO of Heide Museum of Modern Art; Director of Monash Gallery of Art; and from 1997-2007 was Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria. He has individually and collaboratively curated 70 solo, group and thematic exhibitions including major surveys of the works of Howard Arkley, Peter Booth, Louise Bourgeois, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott and Stephen Benwell. He has written on the works of more than 150 artists for a range of publications.
Michael K Strong, Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology
Paper title: Shards of Light; Fragments out of Time
Abstract: The Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology holds one of the premier collections of medieval, Renaissance and Arts and Crafts glass in Australia, some 120 panels and over 500 fragments. Virtually none of these panels are complete, but contain significant fragments from buildings that include Winchester Cathedral, Lincolns Inn, the Grand Carmel Convent in Antwerp, and the Holy Trinity Chapel in Ettington (the mortuary chapel of the Baron Ferrers). Perhaps even more remarkable is that this glass has survived at all – victims of civil war, religious fundamentalism, bombings and looting; perilous sea voyage and terrorism. These fragments provide insights into the great lost windows of Winchester’s Lady Chapel and convey something of the skill and artistic abilities of Tudor glass painters, at the forefront of their craft. The glass fragments from Ettington tell of feudal intrigues and marriages. A major conservation program, completed in 2018, has helped stabilise and protect 90% of the glass. Recently, a detailed catalogue of the collection has been published with the assistance of numerous world authorities, and a paper in the Journal of Stained Glass Centenary Issue has raised public awareness of this extraordinarily rich and varied collection.
Bio: Michael Strong holds an MA in Archaeology and Heritage from Leicester University and is Emeritus Director and Senior Curator at the Abbey Museum. He has been a member of the British Society of Master Glass Painters since 2019. He is director of Turnstone Archaeology, an archaeological consultancy in Queensland, working with Aboriginal communities. He has authored numerous articles and two books on the Abbey Museum’s collections, as well as several on archaeology and Australian birds, one of his lifelong hobbies.
Blanche Tilden
Keynote Conversation title: Blanche Tilden – Ripple Effect: A 25-year Survey
Abstract: In the context of a nationally touring survey exhibition, Jason Smith and Blanche Tilden will discuss the key themes that predominate in Tilden’s singular jewellery made of glass and metal: circularity, geometric form, repetition and gradation; lightness; and precision and mechanical movement. They will discuss how, by abstracting and translating the visual language and materials of architecture, the built environment and the everyday into jewellery, Tilden’s work explores real and symbolic aspects of the material culture of our time and place. And how Tilden’s unique repurposing of industrial and salvaged glass proposes redefinitions of the value and meaning of the jewellery object.
Bio: Blanche Tilden is critically acclaimed nationally and internationally as one of Australia’s most significant artists working in the field of contemporary jewellery. Across a career spanning three decades, Tilden has worked at the cutting edge of craft practice and making, and her work balances conceptual rigour and technical brilliance with the aesthetics and functionality of the jewellery object. Tilden is in the final stage of completion for her PhD through the Australian National University.
Professor Jakapan Vilasineekul, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
Paper title: From Glass to Art
Abstract: Thailand is one of 90 countries that have contributed and endorsed the UN International Year of Glass (IYOG) 2022. There are many activities organised by the glass industry sector and higher education in the country to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of glass. Glass Art Studio, Faculty of Painting Sculpture and Graphic Arts, Silpakorn University, a member of Regional Organisation 16 Artistic Glass Working Group will organise 5 academic activities as follows:
1. From Glass to Art : The Recycle Glass Art Workshop
2. Brushing the Light : The Stained Glass Painting Workshop
3. Stained Glass Conservation Workshop : Practice and Procedure
4. Lecture Series on Glass Art by Invited Artists
5. Lecture and Exhibition on Glass Art by Silpakorn Researcher
The main purposes of the activities are vary from providing knowledge about glass waste management and how to easily create art from glass , to fill in the gap of knowledge in conservation of stained glass heritage as well as promoting glass as a media in creative work. The participants in different workshops and academic programs could vary from junior high school students to academics, artists and curators.
Bio: Jakapan Vilasineekul is an Associate Professor in Sculpture at Silpakorn University, Thailand, where he has been on the faculty since 1995. In 2019, he revived Silpakorn Glass Art Studio, where he is a supervisor. For several years he contributed to promoting Glass Art to Thai Contemporary Art. He has also conducted research into recycled glass and organized activities to raise awareness of glass in the International Year of Glass 2022. He is member of the Regional Organization 16 Artistic working group.
Geoffrey Wallace
Bio: Geoffrey Wallace first began working with stained glass in 1974 and went on to found Australia’s largest stained glass conservation studio, completing many important and award-winning heritage conservation projects in Melbourne and regional Victoria. He has become nationally and internationally renowned in the field of stained-glass conservation and been invited to present scientific papers on stained glass conservation for ICOMOS in France and the American Glass Guild in the USA. He is an Overseas Associate of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. Since 2018 Geoffrey has concentrated exclusively on the creation of new stained glass windows.
Kristin Wohlers, Co-convenor of Mosaics for Afghan Women, MAANZ
Paper title: Mosaics for Afghan Women – Hanging by a Thread – an Australian response
Abstract: Supported by the UN International Year of Glass 2022, Hanging by a Thread forms one piece of Australia and New Zealand’s contribution to the international ‘Mosaic for Afghan Women’ project involving over 1200 mosaic artists from 46 countries. The artists involved have made segments of 10 x 25 cm in glass pieces to form a single large-scale scarf-shaped installation. Scarves are now featuring in Victoria, Melbourne (Immigration Museum), QLD, Brisbane (City Library), Tasmania (Launceston), NSW (National Glass Museum), Whanganui, NZ (MAANZ mosaic exhibition).
Each glass piece is inspired by Afghan traditional dresses, which are beautifully rich in colour, feature intricate patterns, gold embroidery, and are emblematic of the diversity of Afghan culture. Hanging by a Thread aims to highlight the plight of Afghan women and girls under the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law, since regaining control of Afghanistan in August 2021.
Bio: Kristin studied at the Berlin University of Fine Arts and is now based in the Barossa working in a variety of art forms especially mosaics and sculptures. She has exhibited in the Barossa, Sydney and Melbourne and commissioned art works can be found in several Australian cities as well as Hongkong, Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin.
Kristin uses preferably transparent glass smalti and her own glass blocks as well as ceramic tile, local Barossa stone, marble and repurposed materials. Projects are often in collaboration with other artists and she has been involved in a number of public and community art projects over the past 20 years.
Joshua White, Hamilton Gallery
Paper title: Challenges and Innovations in exhibition design: Luminous; John Orval Stained Glass at Hamilton Gallery
Abstract: Hamilton Gallery Director, Joshua White and Exhibitions and Collections Coordinator, Ian Brilley explore and reveal the complexity in developing and delivering an exhibition based on the medium of stained glass. The Hamilton Gallery team explored new exhibition technologies and techniques to create a unique audience experience, whilst innovating and adhering to arts industry standards to present Luminous John Orval Stained Glass Artist.
Bio: Joshua White has been the Director of Hamilton Gallery since 2020 and undertaken many different cultural projects, highlights include hosting the National Gallery of Australia’s touring exhibition, Skywhales: Every Heart Sings by Patricia Piccinini and developing Hamilton Gallery’s 60th anniversary publication and exhibition in collaboration with leading industry scholars and curators.
Joshua has a Master of Creative Industries from the University of Newcastle and has spent over 13 years within the local government cultural sector, predominantly on the east coast of New South Wales. Prior positions include being the Urban and Public Art Project Leader at Lake Macquarie City Council, the Curator of Gosford Regional Gallery and Technical Officer of Newcastle Art Gallery. Whilst studying at Newcastle Hunter Street Art School, he worked for a private conservation company, aiding in the restoration, preservation and conservation of artefacts and artworks.
David Wright
Keynote Conversation: Glass and Spirituality
Abstract: Peter French, Sue McPhee-Wright and David Wright will explore a range of spiritual themes that are interpreted in stained glass across different religions and faiths, but focus on David’s recent suite of windows for St John’s Anglican Church, Flinders.
Bio: David Wright has been designing and making architectural glass since the 1960s. Although he holds a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Melbourne, his has forged a career as a national and international architectural artist. His characteristic organic forms using kiln techniques have evolved over many decades, complementing his distinctive iconographical language and spirituality. Among many significant commissions for churches, school chapels and public buildings are glass installations for New Parliament House, Canberra (ACT), Temple Beth Israel, St Kilda (Vic), the Chapel at Ballarat Grammar School, Melbourne Girls’ Grammar School, Cabrini Hospital Chapel, Malvern (Vic) and St James Anglican Church, Sydney (NSW). In recent years he has developed his field sketches of outback Australia into paintings and prints as well as continuing to create stained glass.
Glass: Vision Reflection Imagination 