• General

    Butterfly Transformation

    On Friday, I spent a day at Trowell Garden Centre.  They are kindly hosting Rachel Carter as she weaves a special memorial butterfly sculpture for Derby Sands.

    Derby Sands is one of over 100 local branches of the national charity, Sands (Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Charity).  They help anybody affected by the death of a baby – not only with comfort and emotional support, but practically with help and information.  They also support research into reducing the loss of babies lives.

    Two years ago, this amazing charity commissioned Rachel to design and install a baby memorial garden at Markeaton Crematorium.  You can read more here

    Rachel is now working on a new addition to the garden; a large butterfly sculpture that will allow more memory tags to be added over the coming years.  I was at Trowell on Friday to help Rachel with some stages of the weaving.

    It’s an honour to be involved in some small part in this beautifully thought out memorial.

    Sands butterfly
    The butterfly in it’s early stages of weaving.

     

    If you want to see it, it will be on display in the restaurant cafe area of the garden centre until Mothers Day.  Rachel has some more literature about it available at the weaving site.  She will be there some days, working her magic as she adds the finishing touches.  I understand the garden itself is open 365 days a year during the normal opening times of Derby Markeaton Crematorium.

  • General

    3D Printed Glass – Amazing!

    As you can imagine, as a glass artist, I am quite obsessed with many things glass. I came across this a few months ago; 3D printed glass.  It’s mesmerising to watch, fascinating to see the technique.

    It appeals to my science side – 3D printing technology, the possibilities are endless!  It would have been quite complex to work out the speeds and the optimum temperature to work at so that the glass was still ‘sticky’ but held it’s shape, and didn’t simply end up a mass on the floor.

    The forms are beautiful – probably mathematical.  It will be interesting to see what develops from this.

    GLASS from Mediated Matter Group on Vimeo.

    You can read more detail about this project here:
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/540926/3-d-printing-breaks-the-glass-barrier/

    Looking up glass sintering for another fascinating project.