Looking back over 2025
2025 projects; glass, life casting and illustration
2025 may feel like a bit of a blur right now, but I have found it is a good practice to scroll back through all the photographs and page through my planner to remind myself what I achieved. Within the chaos of creating and deadlines, the completed project can vanish all too quickly. Looking back on the finished pieces is rewarding and satisfying.
Here are some thoughts I wrote down in January 2025, after I completed The Annual Art Business Reset, a short online course with Josie Lewis.
“My words for the year are Wonder, Imagination, Movement and Patience. They define my wish to create more whimsical art, experiment with colour and movement with glass and to slow down and let the process take the time it needs.”
So how did I go? I think I’d give myself 8/10.
Movement with colour in cast glass can be tricky. It moves alright, but the colours often blend so you don’t see the movement that has happened. This year, I used glass with high contrast in colour and opacity (frequently complex cane offcuts) to drizzle through pots or use hot glass to move coloured pieces in the kiln. I also tried pressing some coloured sheets with handmade moulds from Origami. This technique has been very pleasing and does move the glass in ways it usually would not!
Patience - well, it is a necessary attribute for a glass caster, but I do get keen to start now, before I have everything together. Or to check on something before it is set. Usually, to the detriment of what I am working on. I have got better at reminding myself to wait, plan or go and do something else.
It’s not that I lack imagination or wonder - I need to remind myself to use them alongside my practical problem-solving work. It’s a different sort of thinking and requires a shift in gears. My submission for the Otherworld magazine tested my ability to keep pushing when my ideas didn’t inspire me. I almost gave up until something pivoted. Then the drawing process flowed for the next 80% until it was time for minute adjustments, which I persevered with before putting it away for a week, before a final check, and submitting.
Art challenges do help keep those wonder muscles flexible - you have to work quickly, and that often means leaving the internal critic behind. I have found that my daily sketches help with that second-guessing - just do it, you don’t have time to protest.
My Crowstones Calendar project also required flexing those imagination muscles - improving on the original 7 drawings, casting some aside, sitting and thinking ... If I were a crow on an adventure, what would I do next? How can I make this scene more magical?
Commissions and casting:
My small life casting team painted a full silicone head for Hannah Gee and a face for Rosalind Lemoh. The 2 artists used different materials with their moulds, Hannah with concrete and Roz with bronze, resulting in fabulous pieces.
I shut the door on my ‘let’s wing it’ side and planned Hannah’s session meticulously, and the session was great, and subsequently, Roz’s went well too.
I cast glass for Nathan Beard, Penny Coss and Brendan Van Hek. Making the silicon moulds for Nathan’s project was a good exercise in planning and taking the time that the process needs. The pink crystal pick hammer also took patience and tenacity to achieve.
