The last few months passed with feverish work. „I myself could not understand how we succeeded to finish the reconstruction of glass windows of the Matthias Church on time. Each table was subtlety picked up using small-size diamond cutting disks. Here in the studio the tables were dismantled and the original lead patterns were fixed with strict accordance of the restoration principles and rules. All phases were continuously documented. We made new elements for the damaged pieces, and for the foreign replacements, definitely needed to be replaced.”

“Graduating at the Salgótarján high school, I started to work at the Salgótarján Bottle-glass Works besides Mr. Sándor Erdei, glass artist, who was my mentor as well. After graduating the College of Applied Arts, thanks to György Buczkó, I might frequent the Tokod Glass Plant. For us, it was the best choice in this country. Melted glass was available in large quantities. We could test the size and form limits of the hot glass production. For the safe design and production, you need a sound knowledge of materials. You can learn and progress using your errors only.”

“I am working with hot glass using the recent real possibilities. It would be nice to practice a lot more. These trunks were made recently. At the end of the blowpipe the molten glass is formed by the gravity, by the centrifugal force and (minimally) by the tool. I like the molten glass, as it is formed right before my eyes and by my guidance. It is important that the pieces fit together exactly, to stand on each other.

“I am interested in the statics of the objects, where a piece of glass holds an other in a structure. At my objects I seek a floating effect. The sculptures, integrated by fusing, become exciting plastic experiments, just because their substance: the glass itself. I look for the boundaries in my constructions. This, of course, causes some headaches, and requires high driving of experimentation and a lot of patience.”

“I can not decide whether an object, fashioned in clay, would be good in glass. I am creating unique pieces, using plaster molds only once, I make no rubber molds. When a plaster mold is ready, I contemplate over it a while, whether it is really what I want. Then I put the size-cut glass flakes into the mold one by one. It is like a domino. If falling over, I must start again.”

“I am dealing with frontal-set objects most, and my sculptures are posted on massive pedestals. I mainly prefer the black-and-white contrasts. The most exciting and most interesting details are those fitting the two colours, or being shaped the curves. I try to make the glass as thin as possible, and the dark parts appear like glass, revealing the internal structures. “

An artwork can not „act” below a certain size. The smallest piece he made till now perhaps this piece of cake with a candle, actually a concept of a souvenir. For our part we can imagine that somebody would be pleased getting this piece as birthday present.

It was understood that many things can fit to the geometry. The shapes of the „pop-art style” lying figure can stretch our mind more than any other human description. How much effective is the figure, legs flailing, if somebody wants to create the parody of the „Seasonal Greetings”! And it is an all-over humour, that a sculpture with a turquoise application got the title „Right Eye of Terrence Hill”.

3/12/2013 Budapest

Ferenczy Noémi Prize (2003)

President of the Hungarian Glass Art Sociaty

.When I was a young boy, I made fire enamel. At home, I turned over the pages of the „Művészet” („Art”), contemplating what point I will become an artist. The prestigious magazine was well balanced, fusing social realism with popart. Yet its themes were uniform: there were dramas, sacrifice of Dózsa, fire, blood, war. My father subscribed this journal. He worked in three shifts, carving wood when returning from the uranium mines. He made this head of the devil.

Later I realised that everything was inside me. I need to investigate myself, dealing with trivial problems. Why I want to put together everything of small pieces, complicating all? Looking back my childhood, living in a housing estate, I understand now: I had wood cubes only instead of Lego sets. Perhaps because this bitter lack, I am producing now my own wooden toys.

I’m afraid of the colours, the stained glass is fussy. I was afraid of where I could be. For this reason, I am looking for extreme colours, let the red rage, make me upset, be very horrid! As in the colours, I look for the hardness in the forms and in the technology. Hiding a tear of a process means a kind of switchboard for me.

It is said there is no functionality in works of today. This is not true. At the University, we learned the constructive thinking, based on the Bauhaus. The title is important, just to start. As an introduction for a book. I create contrasts; let the sculpture move me, forcing me to walk around. I work out an idea, hiding inside the object.

On the land of volcanoes, at a sequola forest of the harsh North, near the coast of icy sea, where all began forty years ago. Joining to the „Studio Glass” movement, some experimental glass artists established the Pilchuck Glass School, at this magical place putting up Indian tents that time.

(with her wife Zsuzsanna Körödi glass artist as well)

Since then, a huge campus was constructed. Its role in the glass art is important even by international standards. Dimensions are incomprehensible. For example: 650 VIPs purchased tickets for the Annual Auction Gala, where 350 objects were sold for nearly one and half million dollars.

I succeeded to teach in Pilchuck as third of Hungarian artists, after Zoltán Bohus and Mária Lugossy. Half of the invited lecturers are from abroad, chosen among the grand masters of the world. Innovative feature of the School is that there are no wishes of ungrantable. Immediately repaired, searched anywhere in the world on short notice or constructed.

American students arrive there having high technical knowledge. Young girls can blow a glass hamburger of half table size or a giand dinosaur in a minute. They are professionally helped to make their objects in a best way. Our system is another. We ask first: why dinosaur, after all?

My course was „Free Geometry”. We searched for days the startpoints, how we can edit the cube to display Sex, Death, or any emotion. So we got to the point that one of my students portrayed the earthquake with a faultline crossing a glass cube, instead of presenting bodies lying around. It was a dramatic recognition for all of them.

He finished the Uranium series after the Line, Alien, and Rocket ones. One of them, titled “Hello CERN” (refering to the large collider) is in the MUDAC Museum in Switzerland An other is at the collection of Elton John. We are mustering the Uranium 2 now. Compared to the others in this series, this object is simplistic and corpulent. “To reduce the weight, I made only one layer of opalic glass. It is more difficult, but instead of 100 kilogram this weights 40 only. For today (21.12.12) on the “end of the world”, I must confess that this sculpture is not empty. I concealed a CD inside”.

28/12/2012 Budapest

Read more:

www.gyorgygaspar.eu

Time balance (Detail)

Stone flowers SOLD

Defend

Blue hippo

kiln cast glass

(72 x 90 x 165) SOLD

Green frog  SOLD!

kiln cast glass

SOLD

Pipitéres edény

SOLD

Grapery blown, hot sculptored glass (110/130 x 140)

SOLD

Hillside

blown, hot sculptored glass

(110/130 x 140)

SOLD

Green angular

blown, hot sculptored glass

(110/130 x 140)

SOLD

Pink chamomile

blown, hot sculptored glass

(110/130 x 140)

SOLD

Lilac chamomile

blown, hot sculptored glass

(110/130 x 140)

SOLD

Irises

blown, hot sculptored glass

(100 x 190)

SOLD

Snow flower

blown, hot sculptored glass

120 x 100

SOLD

RG-1 (2016)

Blown glass

(16,5 x 12,5 cm)

BB-1 (2016)

Blown glass

(22,5 x 14,5 cm)

YRARB-1 (2016)

Blown glass

(29,5 x 16 cm)

Meduza sorozat

Meduza m 9cm x sz 6cm

Meduza m 9,5 cm x sz 7cm

Meduza m 8cm x sz 5cm

Meduza m 9cm x sz 5cm

“The afternoon wave reared me, the silky brillance of the sun shone across it. Sluggishly running over me, under its arc the time nearly stopped. When returning home from Greece, I knew how I made it of glass. The ‘I would like to live under blue wave’ was made of hot-fused and bended glass. If somebody fondles it, I know he likes it. .

My uncle dealt with glass, I liked his mastership, so there was no question what to choose, at 15, I entered to the polytechnics of glass industry. When the glass workshop of the College of Applied Arts was established, I was called to enter as instructor.

Initially I made beads and pendants by glass processing over gas jet. I was hardly able to keep a few. Then I dealt with polished jewelery and pins made of metal-vapourised mirrors by glueing. That time the Idea Co. exhibited them, selling a lot in several European countries.

Enlarging the pins, I made statuettes. For jewelery and later for statuettes, I applied first time the metal-vapourised glass. Glued together and polished, they seem to be a large jewel. When I made one, German, Dutch, Japanese galleries and private collectors grabbed at once.

The Neues Glass published an article on my mirror cube. Because of the very special internal reflections I considered it as a piece of my ouvre.

Having read this article, a French couple came to me. They figured the cube to themselves into their bathroom. I said I am unable to sell it. They said they would not depart without the cube, and when I could give a price, then they would double it. I decided several times to make a new one.

For the last seven years I am dealing hot-worked objects. Glass planes are cut first, melted together in furnace, then I polished and bended them in furnace into form. On this bended metal plate the mat-polished glass pane is cautiously heated up, 10-20 centigrade per hour. At 640 centigrade, the object neatly sinks into the form, and the heat gives to it a silk surface. Perhaps related to the personality, somebody likes the mirror-like surfaces, others do the soft forms. It is sure: collectors are different.

At one time I retired to my Balaton cottage, where I was polishing under the bird twittering. I am not tired of glassworking, on contrary, I enjoy it.”

He is managing the glass workshop of the MOME (University of Arts and Craft) since 1985. It is a pity that the furnace does not work for years, but they have a brand-new kiln.

It will be clear after diligent practice only that talent is coupled with ordinance in a student. Few remain in this field. After spending 42 years here I think if I have become known in a given genre, I must change. The glass is brittle and thankless, but a nice material in its kind. I really like.

28/4/2012 Budapest

Cornwallban olyan erős a tengerparti szél, hogy megdönti a legerősebb fákat is. Erről is beszélgettek a zsűrivel, amikor a hanyatt hajló „Fiú” szoborért ítélték oda a díjat. A Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers London az 1500-as években alapított céh az egyik legtöbb tradícióval bíró, komoly elismerést élvező szakmai szervezet Angliában. Minden évben meghirdetik a díjat azoknak a fiatal feltörekvő művészeknek, akik Angliában élnek és dolgoznak. „Meglepődtem, hogy behívtak interjúra és beszélnem kellett a szoborról. ’A fiuk mindig az égre néznek’ – szólt az én egyik érvem arra miért is döl hátra szobor. Tetszett nekik a szobor szögletessége is, meg hogy darabokból van. Náluk ez a gondolkodás ismeretlen, ránk pedig jellemzőek az erős konstruktivista hagyományok miatt.”

A díjat a Lord Mayor of London, London történelmi belvárosának polgármestere adta át egy vacsora keretében a nagyestélyiben és smokingban megjelent több száz fős sereglet előtt. Mindenki ott volt, aki számított. Amikor a „Loving cup”-ot körbe adják kell mondani mellé egy szöveget, szerencsére a hátam mögött álló szomszédom súgott végig. Egyszerre volt ijesztő és vicces az egész, az angolok rettenetesen hagyomány mániásak a szó jó értelmében és ennek súlya van.

Ez volt az első munkám, amit Max Jacquard üvegművész műtermében készítettem. Utána kerültem egy önálló stúdióba amit Londonban a régi vasúti hidak alatt alakítanak ki. Két szinten 14 művész dolgozott. A kiváló hangulatú társaságban volt kerámikus, festő, zenész, kárpitos, performance művész. Életem egyik legjobb szakasza volt ez.

Casting technikával dolgozom. Az öntészet tele van izgalommal, mindig van benne meglepetés. Szeretem a tárgyaimat sok-sok dirib-darabból összerakni, de a forma gonoszkodik az égetésnél, mert a zsugorodása kiszámíthatatlan. Sokat kellett kísérletezni. Amikor Angela Thwaites 2011-ben megjelentette a ’Formakészítés az üvegművészetben’ (Mould making for glass) című könyvét, modellezési szempontok alapján az én tárgyaimat is említi.”

„Először fejeket készítettem. Volt köztük persze zsákutca is. A zöld fej már három különböző üvegből készült. Középső részébe egy londoni buszmegálló kitört üvegét olvasztottam bele.” Az üveg elfedi és fel is fedi azt, ami belül van, ugyan úgy mint az ember.

Miután visszaköltözött Magyarországra érdeklődése a mindennapi élet felé fordult, megszületett a fia és a lánya. „Arra sem volt idő, hogy egy vacak teát megigyak. Belső kényszerem van az alkotásra. Nem tudok nélküle létezni. Azt mondtam magamnak: Nézz körül! Minden ami körülötted van inspirál. A mindennapok eszközeit, tárgyait kell szétcincálni és felmagasztosítani mert megérdemlik” Először születtek a kavicsok, amiket mindenhol megtalálunk, majd eljött a teáscsészék és egyéb tárgyak ideje.

“Szeretek szöszmötölni, szétvágni, összerakni, magamévá tenni a tárgyat. Egy olyan játék lesz, amellyel nem lehet játszani, mert eltörik. Megszűnik a tárgy eredeti funkciója a munka során és beemelődik a képzőművészetbe, ezzel felmagasztosul az egyszerű, a mindennapi.

A szimpla pohár és kancsó forma a víz egyszerűségét fejezi ki. Ez a tárgyegyüttes egy új alkotói korszak, a csendéletek korának kezdete. „A víz micsoda kincs sokak számára. Azzal, hogy több darabból rakom össze a tárgyat, kockáztatom, hogy a szétszedésnél sérül.” Életünk, ami függ a víztől, pont olyan törékeny, mint az üveg.

“Indeed, you need serious physical stamina first. Later you will learn how to feel the hot, molten glass shaking on the end of the pipe. You concentrate strongly; focusing to the movements only, turn the pipe slowly, then quickly. No sudden moves, being flustered can be dangerous. I can say that you get a ZEN state: only you, the glass, your imagination, the joint moves… this is the right balance. This is the way you will be able to do anything.

Why the crafts are so popular and of high quality in Britain? “Because there was a man: John Ruskin, who (a more than hundred years ago) launched a movement to counteract the industrial revolution. The ‘Arts and Crafts’ brought back the mediaeval craft techniques, while seeking to establish a modern style.” This needed a receptive public, of course, who recognized the importance of the initiative. To preserve the tradition, schools, universities, and workshops were formed.

The trend of the ‘studio glass’ started in the US in the sixties. In the small glasshouses, being established one after the other, unique objects were produced by no-industrial methods. This trend spread to England as well.

“ I graduated at the Sunderland College of Glass and Ceramics. A number of similar institutions operate in England. Typically, from my thirty classmates only two or three remained at glass. Today about fifty glasshouses is working in Great Britain. At the studio glass movement, a part of the ceramic artists skifted to the glassworks. It is interesting that two-thirds are women.”

For nearly twenty years he tested many techniques, mostly in London, as one of the leading artist of the L. A. Studio Glass Design, expert in producing large asymmetric objects, and metal patina technique. Orders were abundant.

It was very different engaging in glass pane. Maybe there is only four companies of the world similar in size to the Fusion Glass Design Ltd. They produce decorative glass for buildings. Glass panes are produced for construction with fusing. To produce a glass pane of ten cm thick, even in size of 2×3 meter, the molten glass is spreading then cooling down in 16 huge furnaces. “Can you imagine what feels like to enter an office building with 600 large decorative panel, manufactured by your participation as well?”

“The hot glass is falling outward from three meters height, when opening the bottom of the furnace. I never suffered physical damage. To reach a safe and tension-free status, the glass must be cooled down for days. Then the disc-form cast glass was processed in cold state, decorating with various elements, later softening again in molds, finally we cooled down it again. We were able to produce anything in any size, because we knew what to do. It was in the workshop of Danny Lane.”

“A friend of me invited me to go to Tokod, Hungary, to participate in an international glass conference. There I met Betti.” For the sake of his later wife, Bernadette Hegyvári, a glass artist as well, he moved to Hungary in 2008.

The British studios maintain to order his door keys, decorated with bubbles of baking soda, the glass chalices ornamented with exciting motifs, and the vases. Just now he makes 200 ‘cloudlets’ to decorate a London children’s hospital, and lampshades, decorated with silver foils for a Hungarian interior designer.

He teaches the craft together with his friend, Gergő Pattantyús (see the other report in this website).

The hot parison is formed with scrap paper in his palm. “ The wet paper is appropriate for this work, for due to the resulting vapour the glass can slide on it. The interior of the wooden mold is the best when carbonized a little. We would like to organize a lot of courses, because this industry is beautiful. “

“Come here in summer, you can blow a glass for yourself!”

23/3/2011 Tápiószecső

Read more: www.jamescarcass.com

Just on time, excitement at the top. The furnace is working! Ventilator blades are energetically beating. Across the open windows, grouser furnace inviting. Masters and teachers gather, crossing the pipe network and security devices, while students of glass-working major are arriving in strict schedule.                                                                        .

It is a frequent question: how many furnaces are active in Hungary? Apart from the ones at the Ajka Crystal plant, perhaps 4-5 furnaces of professional scale are working. One of them is here, at the School. Limited by the financial resources, it is heated up for a week – 10 days, two times per semesters. Smelting runs in full night, to produce the next day material.

The task is mold-blowing. Molds are designed and produced by the students. Everybody is stained of oil and graphite. If plaster molds are smeared with the mix of oil and graphite, the glass will not stick to the mold, so it is reusable. But, it is smoking furiously, they work in pair, one needs to fan while blowing, meanwhile the mold must be kept strongly by the other, who then has to open it at the right time. The first piece is not perfect yet, but the experience will be unforgottable.

Emi has covered the mold of his first jug with graphite. „That will be the evil, this one the goodness“, he shows, waiting hardly the minute when his turn arrives. A friendly glassmith will realise his works. The gaffer worked decades in Tokod. There were produced the famous Unicum bottles. After 112 glorious years the famous glass factory became bankrupt and closed in 2004.

This time James Carcass acts as the second blowmaster. Attention is steady. This is the event when the cream of the glass art masters are gathering. They devotedly help the enthusiastic students. They are bouncing questions to each others as well, answers arrived on the spot, what they tried to do and what they learned. The atmosphere is enviable. Real professional workshop.

At lunchtime, the brave students attack the blowpipes. First, they get a blob on the end of the pipe, the next layer can be spooled when the blob cools down a little. The molten glass is ‘gathered’ on to the blowpipe in much the same way that honey is picked up on a dipper. And, it is free to try to blow a small air into the gather. Máté exploits every minutes. Sitting on the bench, he wraps in turning, forming and blowing the glass. He takes a liking to the glassblowing, and he surely has something in his mind.

In every movement of Eszter we see the well-trained dance steps. Glassblowing surely needs a good sense of rhythm. The blob is moving erraneously, she tries to balance it with pleasure, paying attention to prof. Borkovics, who just dropped in with his lunchbag. She imagines her life around the furnace, because she enjoys it, the glass is marvellous, and there is a lot of creativity.

24 hours more, and the objects can be removed from the kiln. Some will be perfect, others a little deceiving. Joy and disappointment. Fortunately, there are the excellent foregoers for stimulation, those living and dying for their profession will not leave the grievings to oneself.

Thanks to Krisztina Kecskés, Kristóf Bihari, Balázs Sipos, Péter Borkovics and James Carcass for the explanations, and thanks the students for their introduction.

5/4/2012 Budapest

Among the properly cared houses with porch, along the well-arranged street of Swabian style, even the summer heat is not as oppressive. Leaving the famous Calvary hill, there is a ruined wall at right, and a colourful glass window in it, and the door. „This is the coat of arms of Magyarpolány, the village; I put it here to defend the yard against the wind”

.

We step into a surreal garden. Glass bubbles defend wizened trees, branches are cradling fist-sized balls.

Waist-high luminous sculptures are among grass tussocks. Before our feet the breeze makes antennas of fused beer bottles whispering.

„Aged for twenty years inside me, finally I have started the headboard series now. I carve the fundamental laws of existence into colouring glass pegs. Only a few bits of this material can colour hundreds of bottles to green or blue.”

„I attended a high school of arts, with major of ceramics, and I was the first to graduate as glass artist at the Kolozsvár University of Arts. I become a designer at the Prodcomplex Glass Factory of Marosvásárhely/Targu Mures. We produced ornamentals and glasses. During 13 years my 600 models went into mass production. I was the first professional designer of the factory, but, as freshman, I was instructed by the old masters as well. I had complete freedom, I could use gold, platinum, lead…what comes into my mind.”

“I built a workshop at my village, Nyárád-gálfalva. Just I finished, the official notice arrived, that we are permitted to transmigrate to Hungary. The family moved in 1986, I was 40 that time, when I started my life again. We knew nobody here. I became a designer at the Ajka Glassworks. After the transition, my workmates were slowly worn out, the mood changed. So I left.”

„I started to establish a plant in Magyarpolány, but the production did not start because of financial problems. I fitted up this little house as a workshop. I applied to reconstruct the 56 m² colour glass windows of the Lutheran Church at the Városliget Fasor, Budapest. As a reference, I used the lead-glass windows of the St. Stephen room at the Veszprém County Hall, as well as the details of my own window prepared for this application. When I finished it, I was able to work just on the same level, as at the time of Miksa Róth. I procured the work.”

„ I teach ceramics at the School of Arts, and I run study groups. This year, upon request, we announced first time the Glass Camp. Parents are difficulty understanding that there is nothing to fear for the kids, when they are excitedly rummaging among the broken glass, assembling their first kaleidoscope.”

They have everything, what needs for managing ceramics and glass. Kilns, pottery wheels, a small furnace, a kiln for fusing glass, polishing machines. They have a special tool to make millefiori, here is an antique lamp made of this peculiar glass.

No hams hanging in the attic, but there is a small showroom, as he says , “the book of recipes.” You can find an example for all the equipment and technology, what he used or developed in the course of his life. If you want to know how to bite a glass, or what miracles can be produced by this craft, then you can go there and look for the „glass master with straw hat at the end of Polány”!

18/8/2013 Magyarpolány