Artist's Statement
I started working with glass 12 years ago, setting up a glass blowing studio with two partners - John Croucher and Garry Nash. Although I loved the blowing process, over the following nine years I became increasingly dissatisfied with the product - especially the lack of intimacy and difficulty in making a personal statement.
While working as a glassblower I also experimented with casting, developing a technique for making large vessels. This was a slow, meditative process, balancing nicely the speed and spontaneity of blowing.
Three years ago I made the decision to move and build on the west coast of Auckland, facing the wild Tasman Sea. Karekare, a Maori name meaning eager agitated, disturbed are very apt descriptions of my feelings then and now. With this move came the transition from blowing to full-time casting.
Relating to a wilder and more expansive environment, my work developed in size and intention. I envisage outdoor installation, garden or wild, creating grottoes perhaps, bowls to catch the clean rain, reflect the changing weather patterns. This approach is my answer to a need for some meaningful ritual in my life.
The process itself is a modified form of cire perdue, or lost wax casting, as I knew it from my previous work with bronze casting. Each piece is the product of a double moulding system. First a wax blank is formed by pouring molten wax into a plaster base mould. This wax "blank" is then modified, added to, refined and sculpted; then invested in a second mould, made of refractory materials that can withstand a long period of time in the kiln at high temperatures. After the wax has been burned out, the cavity if filled with molten glass - 24-45% lead crystal. When full, the mould is cooled and annealed, very carefully, to room temperature, before being broken out of the investment and finished.
My larger pieces require up to three weeks ofannealing and further week for finishing. The casting process lends itself to the making of duplicates. In fact, in order to be cost effective, repeats are imperative and can still vary considerably in detail because of the wax sculpting. Casting units, that can be combined in different ways not only allows a size not otherwise possible, but also a greater variety of forms.
Casting 40-50 kilo pieces is extremely challenging, pushing the technique to its limit. I have times of heavy loss, especially when developing new designs. I've sometimes unsuccessfully cast a new piece repeatedly over 6 months or so before resolving the problems. The Ice Bowl was such a piece, although now it is a joy to cast.
The Ice Bowl actually plays a very special role in my work - rather like a weather vane. Because it is now a very predictable piece, I use it to test changes I am always trying in the process such as mould materials, firing schedules, glasses, colorants and annealing. It's a piece that has changed immensely with these technical changes, and each time seems to be a new piece with its own idiosyncrasies and character. I have cast it 45 times over 9 years and at the rate of four or five a year, and will stop in about the year 2000 at one hundred total.
Other pieces - Peace Bowl, Water Bowl, Shrine and Antipodean Bowls, Pacific Bowl, and Nikau Vases - are series pieces, each unique because only the wax blank comes from the mould, with further changes being worked in spontaneous dialogue with the form and its changing meaning to me. Working this way, a form is resolved over years with a maturity that I was unable to achieve initially.
I am sensitive to the concerns of collectors who fear the value of their piece is undermined by too frequent production. I would like to point out, however, that I would be serious stunting my creative development NOT to work in this way. I can only arrive at a balance of technical. aesthetic and emotional factors by repeatedly attempting a piece, working it out to perfection. Those pieces released from my studio to the U.S. are the best pieces I have produced at this time.
Despite computer controlled kilns, the process is still primitive. Refractory materials can become dislodged during the firing and cause imperfections. Rather than abandon an imperfect cast, I decided to take my lead from Bronze casting protocol, and develop 'fettling', i.e., to drill out flawed sections and carefully fit in a piece of glass that matches perfectly the surrounding surface. In other words - a patch! - why not? - beautifully, skilfully done, this is not only an addition in terms of skill, craftsmanship, but it is a statement for me, an opposition to our society's throw-away philosophy. If I am using some of the worlds unrenewable resources, then the article should not be treated lightly - but regarded as an artefact, or heirloom - treasured.
Interestingly, these techniques have now moved into my creative process, where I exploit their design potential. Its an example of the rich relationship between 'maker' and 'designer', how from the action of making, new ideas emerge.
The new bowls, 'Bowl of Tears' and "Bowl for Morgan Le Fey", shows this direction for the first (but not last) time. Looking deceptively simple, I doubt that the time invested in fitting those in sets will be appreciated.
The design idea is always the start, but the unexpected, often the finishing touch. The 'Scallop Bowl' for example. When completed, I discovered the form channelled light out to the tips in a manner that I would never have predicated. The serendipity of making.
Really, I am concerned with the timelessness of beauty. The bowl for me is a form with multiple levels of meaning. The increase in size brings questions to the surface that are painful to answer. In the 20th century, what use have we for the "ceremonial vessel?" For me the bowl evokes all that it has historically been from the earliest mortar through ritual and religious bowls, to the bowls that talk to satellites. The receiver, holder, protector, offerer and transmitter.
Ann Robinson
Karekare
New ZealandApril 1994
"I see myself as a designer/maker of limited production series. I do not wish to resort to teaching to supplement my income, and so run my studio firmly as a business, a business that I as a creative person grow and flourish in. I have arrived at a mode of working that satisfies production realities, while facilitating 'one off' developments. Casting processes lend themselves to the making of repeats. Working in wax allows me to significantly alter a master copy so that I can develop ideas over a period of time.
Other changes in the process, such as the glass type, colours, method of loading, and firing schedules result in works that differ markedly in quality. Thus, revisiting an earlier design can be a very worthwhile exercise.
My culture is South Pacific, home of wonderous large bowls. It is an environment that has formed my philosophy and influenced my design.
My market, in Aotearoa New Zealand, is small conservative and honest. By inclination I am a vessel maker, but I see this fact as a reflection of a passion New Zealanders have for the vessel and an empathy and understanding that Pacific peoples have for the ceremonial bowl".
Ann Robinson's Home Page | 'C. V.'
Home base at Karekare:
P O BOX 21-495, AUCKLAND 8, NEW ZEALAND
Ph / Fax: 64-9-8128555 ..... Email:
jedgar@iconz.co.nz