London Craft Week: Nature, Glass & Longevity.
As part of London Craft Week 2023, Rock & Soar had the privilege of leading a panel discussion at Taylor Howes Showroom covering new glass experiments, lighting and colour for the interior design industry.
Joining us were British glassblowing artist and owner of artist-lead gallery ‘Blowfish Glass’, Bethany Wood and Jane Landino of Taylor Howes.
Rock & Soar install of ‘Storm’ at Taylor Howes.
The talk ‘The World of Glass: Secrets, Interiors and ‘Light-Play’ consisted of delving into glass techniques, how Rock & Soar’s pieces are made, creative process, and understanding how coloured glass lighting can be used within an interior scheme. Glassmaker Bethany Wood who helps to create Rock & Soar’s work alongside Elliot Walker, also had a selection of glass sculptures on display throughout the showroom thanks to Vessel Gallery, and she gave insight into the ‘making of’ her pieces which involve popping glass bubbles onto her vessels and allowing them to flow round the main body of glass.
An interesting secret from the artist herself, explains that transparent and opaque colours have different applications that you don’t necessarily think would move that way - stretching opaques can actually look transparent but retain saturated colour, which is how the colour is produced for ‘Storm’.
Choosing the right maker to produce our designs is incredibly important and helps speed up the process when you’re both on the same wavelength. A creative practice of sketching and painting for grasping initial designs is a fundamental that Rock & Soar and their glassmaker Bethany Wood have in common and is why we work well to interpret the concepts on paper into tangible designs.
A question we often wonder is if coloured glass lighting for interior schemes has longevity, as our designs lean towards being unapologetically colourful art works to invest in, and aim to be timeless pieces. Jane Landino explains that Taylor Howes loves to play with colour and texture in their projects. Clients will have their own wishes regarding the style, materials and colours used within the property and interior designers always have to be aware of restrictions and the practicality of the desires. Once the brief has been set, Taylor Howes often uses nature as their inspiration as well as looking into the history of the property.
The space will guide what type of lighting sculpture will be used within the scheme and when the time comes for the interior to be refurbished, you can always work around the sculptural lighting installation or collectable art pieces. A key point made was that due to the nature of Rock & Soar’s installations being multiple components, these can always be taken down and rearranged into a different composition to give the interior a fresh look.
