A lightshade order from the Big Smoke presented the opportunity for a much needed boys’ trip away for Johnny and Will.
Although they’ll tell you it was a trip designed to get the creative juices flowing by the glass collection at the V&A, or for some cultural enrichment, I really think they spent most of their time drinking beer.
You’ll notice this about glassblowers; their capacity for drinking is really quite impressive. And maybe this is why they make such great glass – because they’re the ones drinking from it most of the time.
Joking aside, it really feels like the pair of them have returned full of vim and vigour, and they’ve had a go at making spouts and are looking at other forms – I’ve been furnished with a suite of pictures from their trip, of bowls and glasses and tiny, yet perfectly formed pieces that have set them off on a frenzy of enthusiastic blowing.
Will has good reason to search for inspiration at the moment, though not necessarily just in London.
Shakspeare Glass HQ is to be a venue for this year’s Somerset Art Weeks, and together with artists Ashar, and Jenny Graham, he’ll be making pieces which reflect his feelings about the Quantocks.
Will did give me some in-depth information as to what the Quantocks mean to him, and my main takeaway was that every view is captured through the frame of trees. Trees, as you may or may not know are his favourite things. Well, one of them, along with cider, cuttlefish, and a good pencil.
Before the trip to London, Will had made some more of his gorgeous MM Bottles, which are in homage of Maurice Marinot, and him and Johnny took another look at Marinot’s work in the V&A – Will says the stoppers are even better than he remembered them.
I’m expecting some seriously good glass to be produced off the back of his fact finding walks in the Quantocks, and the subsequent trip to the city, and there’s talk of twisting glass, and spout making techniques, and stoppers, and stems, and bowls and all sorts of fabulous stuff.
And I think Will and Johnny are slowly coming to terms with the fact that they’re better than they think they are. (Not that you’d know it, but the pair of them don’t believe they’re as awesome as they are, most of the time.)
So steel yourselves, because the sun is shining, creativity is flowing, and the boys are back in town!