EDOLS AND ELLIOTT
Australian
glass artists Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott
combine the intellect
of an art school background with a strong foundation in technical skills.
Profile by Meredith Hinchliffe. Photography by Peter Scott and Ian Hobbs.
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'Vein', 1997, blown and engraved glass, ht 37 cm
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In exploring a "modern" history of glass, one inevitably
turns to Venice, '...the spiritual home of glass in Europe."
In her essay Apologia for Murano, published in the cata
logue for "Venezia Aperto Vetro, International New Glass"
in 1998, Rosa Barovier Mentasti wrote that Muranese
glass enjoyed a monopoly situation between the 15th and
17th centuries. During this period, the only glass that
was worthy of the elegant and formal palaces of the courts
and aristocracy throughout Europe was Venetian or in the
Venetian style.
It has also been said that to be a master artist in glass yo
u must have it in your blood, your great grandfather, your
grandfather and your father must be passionate about glass.
If you do not have the necessary ancestors, it is not your
fault if you do not succeed.
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| Without this tradition, why are Australian glass artists, such as Kathy Elliott and Benjamin Edols, currently enjoying so much success? Elliott may have an edge over Edols her grandfather was a glass engraver and she remembers many beautiful objects in her grandparents house. She was always crazy about glass but did not pursue this love until she was 23 years old. On discovering the course at the Canberra School of Art, she aimed to become a glassblower but found that she was unsuited to the process. The two things which
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'Blue Vein', 1999, blown and engraved glass, ht 77 cm
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'Bud' and 'Seed', 1998, blown and engraved glass, ht 23 cm and 36 cm
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'Blue Coral', blown/cut glass, ht 26 cm
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attracted Elliott to glass are light and colour, and she found these in other glassmaking processes.
Edols was drawn to glass by accident. In his last year of school, he attended an open day at Sydney College of the Arts where Michael Keighery was Acting Head of the Workshop. 'Michael is very charismatic and I wanted to work with him,' Edols recalls. 'At my first hands-on encounter with glass in Keith Rowe's workshop I
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'Moss Aqua Spiral', 1998, blown and
engraved glass
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'Untitled', 1997, blown and engraved glass, ht 66 cm
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was told that I had a natural talent. From the start it was as though I had done it before.
' Elliott and Edols draw their influences from the Venetian masters as well as from more contemporary artists, such as Paolo Venini, Fulvio Bianconi and Livio Seguso and Lino Tagliapietra. The past exerts a strong pull on artists, especially visual artists. All artists revisit the masters, taking those elements they desire and discarding others. They appropriate concepts as well as techniques, reinterpret them, re-invent them and then present their own distinctive expression. As with Edols, this often happens second or third hand. He explains: 'You put your own spin on a body of work and make a contribution to the long history of vessel making.'
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