Dawn Turner Designs

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.

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.

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.

Hi all

… and Happy New Year!  I don’t make resolutions anymore but I will try and keep the blog a bit more up-to-date in 2016.

This year will see a wider range of fusing classes on offer; extra dates, more techniques, some intermediate level classes.  I also plan to offer an evening class, although the studio requires  a bit more work to accommodate the needs of an ongoing group.

So to kick of 2016 classes, I have a new one; Pictures & Panels.  This will still be a full day workshop, suitable for starters although previous students would enjoy this class too.  During the workshop, we will focus more on techniques more suited to panels – ones that create texture through a variety of methods.

  I will add more photos in a few days.

The first provisional date is Saturday 20th February 2016.  You can contact me via the GET IN TOUCH page here if you’d like to book a place or redeem a voucher that you have.

If you can’t do this date, please let me know, as I am expecting a lot of interest will look at offering other days, possibly Sunday 21st February, or the following Saturday 27th (and more if necessary

Well, I’ve not posted for quite a while!  Mainly because I’ve been busy making – Christmas decorations, seasonal panels, playing with sand-blasters and generally enjoying myself in the workshop.

I’ve also done a few selling events, more than normal for me, and a couple of fusing workshops down at Shed 2.  So for now, I haven’t got a lot to tell you, but lots and lots to show you, so this is going to be a nice, picture heavy post – lots of pretty images to look at – and some of the items are still available (mostly listed on my Facebook page) so get in touch if you’re interested in something.

I doubt I will be posting before the big day, as I have been so busy making for other people to be able to buy gifts, I haven’t thought about *my* Christmas yet!  So I’ll finish by wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.