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'Unravelled Grouping', 1998, blown and
engraved glass, tallest 78 cm
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As early as January, 1990, Edols attended a workshop with Lino Tagliapietra, Dante Marioni and Dick Marquis at the Sunbeam Glassworks in New Zealand. This was an important contact for Edols. In June, 1990 he was invited to the US by Marioni to be his student at Pilchuck and spent a month living and working with him. They have remained firm friends and colleagues ever since. Edols and Elliott met in Canberra and travelled together to the US in 1993. At the Corning Museum of Glass in New York they were exposed to 20th-century Venetian and Scandinavian glass. The elegant vessels appealed to them both. 'French glass is too decorative, too ornate and German glass didn't appeal to us either,' Elliott says. 'We were attracted to the simplicity of the form and the silhouette of Venetian and Scandinavian glass, which is restrained and elegant. We also love the way they use colour.'
Perhaps more importantly, there is a long history of glass cutting in Corning and a tradition of division of
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labour. 'In Corning they describe blown vessels as blanks. I was told, "and never consider an object finished until the surface has been cut". They value-add to the vessel.' The solid grounding in technique suited their approach to studio glass.
Edols liked the idea of a master with one or two assistants, although he does not claim to be a master himself.
To develop his glassblowing skills Edols deliberately pursued opportunities to work with artists such as Tagliapietra and Marioni and has taken part in many workshops. 'The traditional apprenticeship model gives you a solid foundation but you can tend to get too bound up in tradition,' Edols mused. 'If you come through an art school you can express an idea or an emotion and use the skills to do it.'
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| Having decided to make a commitment to each other in their private lives, the need for two incomes led them to consider ways in which they could work together creatively. 'It was important for us to make a commitment to each other's career, too,' said Edols. 'Corning was the ideal place for Kathy to develop her engraving skills and value-add to my blown vessels.'
Both Elliott and Edols sketch ideas and concepts and Edols blows the forms. Elliott feels that Edols frequently improves the design, and the transition from the two-dimensional to three-dimensional form makes the vessels crisper and more elegant. He explains this by saying he sometimes makes the form more stylised, more Venetian. 'I make shapes that come naturally to glassblowing.' They bounce ideas off each other and discuss the object when it is finished, refining it in the process.
Once blown, Elliott engraves (cuts) the glass on an engraving wheel, using stone and diamond wheels. 'She has a rich vocabulary of textures and surfaces
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'Occhiali', 1998, blown and engraved glass, ht 29 cm
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which are less predictable than mine, that can be used on different forms,' says Edols. Both artists believe the collaborative nature of their work is far more than the sum of two ideas. This is the traditional studio practice, with two or more artists contributing to the final object.
The practice of one artist blowing forms and then both working on the surface is also a useful solution to limited studio space. They elected to rent space, rather than operating their own hotshop.
Both Elliott and Edols are emphatic that good glass is fundamentally grounded in technical skills. 'Technique is crucial. Of course, you must also have a concept, an idea. If you have a good idea but it isn't made well the outcome can be so underwhelming. The marriage of technique and imagination is the essence of fine quality work,' says Elliott. Edols puts it differently: 'Without human intervention molten glass
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| simply obeys the laws of physics and basically it wants to dribble on the concrete and bubble. Making objects is all about the purposeful intention of the artist to control the material in order to achieve the idea.'
In their recent exhibition at Beaver Galleries, they showed two opaque, black vessels with smoothly cut surfaces, their long necks rising strongly from asymmetrical bases. Both are finely balanced and controlled, affirming Edols' skills as a glassblower. 'The simple form is a dramatic statement in positive and negative shapes, which is predominantly what the opaque work is about,' says Elliott. 'The transparent glass is about light and volume and how the light plays on the undulating surfaces and of the vessel.' People speak of the fourth dimension of glass, the inner-one, characterised by lights and evocative
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| colours. The opacity or transparency of the vessels is as important for these artists as the colours. Red, black, cream and a pale "celadon" are opaque, with cut surfaces that appear to be burnished. The surface reflects the light softly, enhancing their volume and silhouettes. Edols believes that a high-gloss surface, which we might associate more with glass, distracts the eye from the form.
The ribbed vessels, such as Bud and Seed, are made from thick ribbons of glass overlaid on the blown surface. This process causes the light to emanate from within so the colours deepen with the thickness of the glass. On several works the pattern meanders over the surface like the random unspooling of a ribbon tight on a blue sphere and more languidly on a tall bottle.
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'Ebony Long-neck Pair', 1998, blown and wheel cut glass, tallest 52 cm
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Deep grooves, cut close together, give high relief to the surface of Groove II and play with the translucency and transparency of cobalt and emerald glass. Cutting or engraving not only adds texture and tension, but also enhances the intensity of the form. This is evident with Occhiali, where the regular placement of a circular pattern on the surface of the bowl is accented beautifully by the smaller circles within. This is the "value- adding" Edols speaks of.
Kathy Elliott and Benjamin Edols combine the intellect of an art school background with a strong foundation in technical skills. They know the history of the fine arts and the decorative arts. They have experimented and have mastered their material to bring out the best it has to offer. While they may not have an ancestral background, their intelligent pursuit of technical skills has enabled them to embrace and exploit tradition.
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Benjamin Edols and Kathy Elliott's collaborative work is receiving widespread recognition in the US among collectors of contemporary art glass. Their future as artists seems assured and we can only hope that the future is in Australia as well as America.
Meredith Hinchliffe
Meredith Hinchliffe is a Canberra-based freelance arts advocate and writer. Benjamin Edols & Kathy Elliott are represented by Quadrivium Gallery in Sydney and Beaver Galleries in Canberra.
NOTES
1. Dan Klein, Introduction, "Venezia Aperto Vetro, International New Glass", Eds Attilia Dorigato, Dan Klein, Arsenale Editrice, 1996. p. 11.
2. Rosa Barovier Mentasti, Apologia for Murano, Venezia Aperto Vetro, International New Glass, 1998. p. 11.
3. Quoted by Richard Whitely, 'What makes Australian glass Australian and where is it going?' Papers of the 11th Biennial Ausglass Conference, published June, 1999.
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