Dawn Turner Designs

Just as quick update as promised earlier, some mock up images when I was trying to decide, coloured, clear or mixed. Please DO excuse some of the brightness, it was only to try and give myself a rough idea how each might look

Wow, where does the time go?  I’ll tell you, into planning and working things out!  This is a bit of a quick post and run – hopefully I might have a few images to put up later this week.

So, where am I up to?  I’ve spoken to Mark at Steelcraft Fabrications, who’s kindly going to make my metal framework.  Poor chap, put him through the mill about with all my crazy ideas…. I wanted to do some sort of helix type affair, but when he did a mini mock-up for me, it wasn’t so easy as I’d envisaged (bear in mind I am not a welder!)  – I realised that, with that kind of complex structure, it would take a lot more planning and designing than I now have time for.  I’ve got to rely on Mark’s considerable skill and experience for him be able to create this framework for me without having the final glass panels to work with… not an easy task!

I’ve been a silly billy and done my usual thing – allowed time for the *making* yeah yeah, I know how long my mould making takes, etc, but I forget to factor in how many times I need to put the kiln on – chances are, the glass is going to be ready only a few days before the whole piece has to be delivered, so, we’re working a bit blind on the frame.

With this in mind, I think I will go back to the original idea of keeping it quite simple – of course, I am not easy to please, because, whilst I want this lovely metal frame making, I don’t want it to be the main part of the finished piece, if you get what I mean?  I am an glass artist, not a metal sculptor.  So poor Mark, has got to make me something that holds the glass how I want, isn’t too overbearing, but is good and strong, all without having the glass to work with (mind you, he says he doesn’t actually WANT the glass in his workshop, he might break it – that WOULD cause me to panic!)

So, what else?  Well, as I said, hopefully pictures soon, but talking to a colleague the other day and she reminded me of the beauty of using clear glass – so I think I will be going back to that, rather than the coloured panels.

Again, it’s a slightly practical solution too – I haven’t got time to make up a maquette to make sure the colours would work with each other – and I am also enjoying the experimenting with enamels to colour the clear glass – here’s an early sample:

Using similar texture making techniques as I have done with the coloured glass, but using lovely clear instead, and adding touches of colour.  Decision made!!

Late last year, I applied to this years Sculpture in the Sanctuary at Reg Taylor’s Garden Centre in Southwell.  I’d visited it in 2009 with my son and some friends and I thoroughly loved it.  Here’s a blog post I wrote about it after I had been and some pictures, conveniently put into a slideshow: Sculpture in the Sanctuary 2009

The organiser liked my work and I was very excited to have been offered the chance to exhibit there this year, so I went up last week to view the potential space.

As last time, as well as lots and lots of sculptures in the gorgeous Swan Sanctuary, there will be work in glasshouses, and this is the one I hope to display my work in:

A view of the glasshouse – look at all that light

That spot to the right of the path looks ideal

This was taken on a slightly dull day – as you can imagine, in summer, when the exhibition is running, it will be flooded with glorious sunshine. A lot of the lush, more established taller greenery will be staying, but the gravel beds on the floor, currently filled with lots of pots will be a lot clearer for our work.

I am thinking of some kind of free-standing structure,several panels, quite tall, so that for the top, you have to look up, and the light from the glass roof will shine through and highlight the texture.

One of my original textured panels

Maybe not green, with all that lush, but this sort of texture

Perhaps bold, contrasting colours

I’ll probably be working with texture again, although I’ll be thinking about the project brief/working titles over the next week or so to decide on what that will be.  I do think this kind of texture will work really well though, in colours, as with the right kind of light it will cast lots of interesting patterns and shadows.