Topic: Mdina Textured Bottle signed 'Mdina' by Michael Harris?

[chopin-liszt]

After Harris left, there was a period where a lot of experimentation was still going on and there many more accomplished makers arrived. The apprentices were learning and getting better and better.
I believe Joseph Said had a real knack and learned very, very quickly, becoming very good in under the normal 10 years or so of practice it would normally take.

This is the period when Marie and Dobson took on the job of producing "artist" signatures, on pieces that were deemed significant enough.
Fish vases, very tall, attenuated, strapped two-tone bottles, cut-ice lollipops, the cube solifleurs and enormous cylinders.
These were not really run-of-the-mill production tourist pieces. 

The dates found on them range roughly between '74 and '82. (I think. I'm open to being corrected. It might be '73 and '79, with the odd anomaly.)

[Vitreo94]

That's intresting, I expected after Harris had left for the company to be less experimental for some reason, but I'm pleased that they retained their experimental flare!

I see, it certainly makes sense from a busines point of view to sign the more signifcant pieces to make them more appealing (not that they needed to be IMO). Did Eric opt for a 'random' signature like Marie seems to have done or did he stick to a specific 'artist' signature on all the pieces he signed? I've seen alot of his signatures and they all seem fairly uniform in their appearance.

I have had a large fish vase with 1973 on it but I haven't seen one earlier than that, and the latest I've seen is 1978 but im sure there are later ones!

[chopin-liszt]

The squiggles produced by Marie are fairly consistent, and so are those done by Eric Dobson. Nobody knows (yet) if they're supposed to read anything, or what they are supposed to read if they are. 

[glassobsessed]

Can I ask how you know they were being developed before he left? 

Either Sue or Ron probably, the vast majority of what I have picked up has come from four sources I guess, Mark Hill's book, Sue, Ron Wheeler of Artius Glass and then handling as much of the glass as possible. A basic understanding of how stuff is made is useful too.