In 1987 I began working on a series of impressionistic landscape vessels that were inspired by Monet’s paintings. I happened to show these to Eric Knowles who commented that they were reminiscent of Monart. At the time I had never even heard of Monart and so I was a little disconcerted at the reference, which today I realise was a compliment! I only made about thirty or forty pieces before I moved onto another body of work, but on and off during my career I have continued to make landscapes, experimenting with various styles and effects.
Recently I have been working on a series of landscapes for a couple of forthcoming exhibitions, one in London and one in San Francisco. These have changed completely over the years and each one is completely different from the next.
On Easter Monday we went to the superb "Turner, Whistler, Monet" exhibition at Tate Britain, which I loved and would thoroughly recommend. Yesterday I made a number of pieces for the exhibition, which have undoubtedly been influenced by our move to a flat overlooking the Thames, coupled with my being imbued with the light treatments highlighted in the "Turner, Whistler, Monet" exhibition.
I was surprised this morning by how similar this particular piece was to some of those pieces I made in the eighties.
http://tinypic.com/2ilt7tI have often wondered whether there is any evidence that suggests that Monart palettes were inspired by the impressionists or is this just conjecture on my part?
Monart enthusiasts may be interested to attend my forthcoming demonstration of some of the techniques used to achieve the effects in the vase shown above, on Saturday 2nd April and Saturday 16th April. Details can be found on the main glass message board under the thread heading Exhibition and Glassblowing Demonstration.