Borbás Dorka

“The glass is fragile, like life. It must be treated like a lion: with courage, with strength, with firmness. There is no place to hurry. We know where to grab, how to put here and there, how to load in and out of the car. The glass rarely cut our hands. We never broke even a tumbler. “Cliiink… party freezing, the pen hit a blown slender glass! It sings with crystal tone. In moments, a five-piece percussion band can be organized: we are five to sip fruit juice at this summer afternoon.

“I tried almost everything with the glass. The basic style is classical, only the technique is new. I learned a lot from my father. He was a sculptor, created figurative works. To me, the old masters and the archaic topics are much closer.”

“Freshly graduated, my career started with the restoration of the headquarters of the National Bank of Hungary, being suspended or lying on my stomach at twenty meter height. Because of the curvature of the walls, we put in place the century-old mosaics sometimes half meter apart from the wall. On the steel frame of the forty-square meter glass dome of BB bank, we were walking as spiders. Nowadays I am interesting in the more feminine parts of our expertise.

Encircled by my children, I undertook some works easily interruptible. I can create something while the carrot cake was baked. I cannot crack the glass at home, so, enjoying the understanding patience of my mother, my workshop is at her, for the messy and dirty works.

To make ‘Pate de verre’ is required fine crushed glass (warm glass technique). First, a parish plaster mold is made, copying the clay sculpture or relief. Filling the mold with frit, the crushed glass is fired in a kiln.

“Once everybody made Tiffany, later fusing glass. The ‘industrial art’ (as we call crafts) is fighting unprotected with the global competition, inexplicable by common sense. I cannot afford any technical simplicity, because it can be copied.”

She shows us what we did not see before: sand-blown mirrors, where wispy silver film completes the view of surface pattern. The archaic effect is enhanced by bronze and gold leaf application. That is all, what we may tell on it.

“The glass is accepted as a component of the interior design. “ It is hard to tell what style of somebody. Those living among many books, are sticking their habitual objects, and prefer archaic forms. “

Do the ‘minimal art’, or high-level simplicity really dislike the personality? “ I do not think that the minimalism and the personality exclude each other. No doubt, since the spreading of computers architects rarely draw by hand, a plan can be presented more easily on screen, but it is a hard job to sell a dream of unique glass surface by computers.”

Is it true that the people of fifty –and-so of age take nothing along from their past to a new home? “ Yes, sometimes, but they are happy with a nice quote on the glass door, or with a quiet color spot. I hope my brand-new plan will be a success as well: a glass wall will be illuminated by LEDs. The natural play of the daylight can be recalled at night by computer animation. I can hardly wait to start the playful product…”

1/8/2011 Adyliget