AOTM November 2010 - Madeline Bunyan

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Madeline Bunyan

My family moved down to Devon when I was about 7 to run a craft gallery, which is the Vivian Gallery in Dawlish, so I have always been surrounded by handmade textiles, jewellery and other creative stuff. Mum makes silver jewellery, and has done since before we came to Devon, she also made beaded jewellery and sold it at craft fairs and suchlike. So I learnt a lot about jewellery making while growing up. She delights in telling people I used to show the girl guides that came to her 'Make your own Earrings' stall at craft fairs, how to do it... at all of about 6 years old! I am one of those people who can say I've always been creative, sewing, drawing, painting, polymer clay, anything like that. Sometime in 2003, about the time I was starting my A levels (textiles and AVCE art and design) Mum discovered fused glass, and began to experiment and use it in her jewellery. We discovered you could actually MAKE things out of glass, and we were hooked!

^{yeah, this is me, this cardigan's an excuse for a funky button if ever there was one!}

University was something I'd never really considered, I didn't know of any course that would suit me. So after the A Levels I did a local NCFE creative crafts course taught by Su Kaye who was brilliant, mostly to do jewellery making. We had got a Skutt kiln by then, so I also played around with glass. In experimenting for this course, my very first beads were made on a sievert jewellery torch with bullseye stringer, and kiln wash on a mandrel made from a stainless steel whisk, no tuition and no real idea what I was doing, I think I had possibly read a teeny chapter on lampworking in one of the glass fusing books. And yes, they were pants, the colours were muck, the ends bitey and they were wonky, but I MADE them!

In early 2006 we booked 2 days worth of lessons on beginning lampwork. Before we went, Mum had decided to buy a hothead and kit, which came with a basic book. But we were too scared to light the thing! After our introduction we got over it, made some beads, used a lot of MAPP gas and few months later we bought a bobcat.

^{I'd like to point out that these aren't some of my early beads...I'm not showing you those!}

Apart from the initial lessons, I learned mostly from books and by practising. We now have quite a library of glass and lampwork books between us, I like to refer to them when I'm feeling uninspired. Also I found a couple of free tutorials online, but I hadn't discovered the forums at this point, and I hadn't looked at youtube as a place to see lampwork being done, though I doubt there was as much on there then as there is now!

As for Su Kaye, it is 100% her fault that I went to do my Applied Arts foundation degree at Plymouth College of Art, she told me about it, and encouraged me to go. And once there I stayed to do the full Degree. She is also married to the wonderful Ian Hankey, who I'll get to later.

My Degree in Applied Arts : ceramics metals & glass, well it was 3 years playing with lots of kit, access to pretty much anything they had to offer, knowledgeable (except for lampwork) technicians and teaching staff. I learnt about many other aspects of glass-working, blowing, casting, fusing, slumping and coldworking. Also all the other stuff, ceramics, jewellery, blacksmithing etc. As for the lampwork, they knew how to light the torches, and about COE but other than that, knowledge was very limited, also they didn't have a dedicated bead annealing kiln for a while.
The lovely Diana East came to give a talk and demonstrate at the college at the end of my first year, and left many people inspired to give it a go. During my second year Diana East came back, and brought with her Julie Ann Denton to do a sandcasting and flame working workshop, I didn't get a place on the course but they did ask for some helpers an excuse to lurk and absorb any spare information flying around! By this time the college had taken on glass blower Ian Hankey, and the glass technician was Lawrence West, so together, they made a great team.

During my Degree I experimented a lot at the torch, after the first few projects of my second year, I had become almost entirely lampwork based, and never looked back. Some of my experiments included these:

Which led me to this for my final major project, I made borosilicate vessels:

This was only the start of impractical jewellery for me, its time I mentioned Imogen, who you may have seen before on the back of the GBUK journal wearing, what many describe as a glass feather boa!
This was my degree piece, a well travelled piece of work, it was in the college summer show, it came to London for New Designers (where I met Becky Fairclough), and a couple of other exhibitions including one at Duchy Square in Princetown.

This piece represents a big challenge for me, and about 8 months of my life! Researching this for my final project, and developing it, and finally, about 2 months actually making it!
One challenge was that it was in monochrome. Something I never ever do, I'm far too attracted to colour, but I was determined. It also was pretty repetitive, something I don't generally like to do. Restricting myself in these ways allowed for the shapes to come through, the only thing I could make different was those swirling curling ribbons of glass, I think I must have made about 600 of those, and I rejected and re-melted a lot of them, I also made several hundred small plain spacers. I think I must have been a little bit mad...

The artist's statement for this piece can be read on my website here, but in short it is based on those stunning displays put on by huge flocks of starlings, about collective conciousness, and being part of something bigger. My idea from the beginning was to make a big thing out of small component things, and initially I had no idea at all how I would achieve this, only that it would be lampworked...somehow!

Incidentally, Imogen is a glass worker herself, and she's on here as squaresthatlookround but never says anything, another naughty lurker! Imogen...come and say hello!!! We don't bite!

Being based in Devon, I haven't had formal lessons since my first two days, because there wasn't anywhere close by that I could get to. But now that's changed, with Manda Mangobead's beadyful new studio! I'm looking forward to taking classes there.

Tonbo-dama beads fascinate me, the precision and control involved and the complex murrini canes. I bought the book that Manda sells on tonbo-dama beads, and I'm keen to go on a course.
I'm also keen to get back into working with borosilicate (need more oxy! The College ran tanked oxy on a midrange...I miss it!)

Some people I admire...Teresa Laliberte (whose goddess tutorial I bought and loved, and really got me into more sculptural work, its also entirely her fault that I found the forums!) Elizabeth Wait - (Betsy MN on etsy and Artfire) for her superb dot placement and mastery of silver glass and colour combos, Anouk, for just being Anouk and generally fabulous, (and whose tutorials are well written, easy to follow, and the beads she shares are wonderful.) Dora Schubert & Lorna Prime for their fantastic delicate stringer work (and lately Lorna's jewellery...yum!), Christina (FenG), Manda for her patience with glass, Ian Hankey is such a great inspiration, his enthusiasm for glass is infectious, and though his teaching post was classroom based at first, you would often find him in the Hotshop 'helping out'. I already mentioned Julie Ann Denton and Di East, but there are sooo many more, I could go on and on!

^{I took the goddess shape in some other directions}

I'm Inspired by all sorts of things, I'm lucky to live by the sea, on that part of the Devon coast where the cliffs are red and the sunlight in the mornings is something that can never quite be captured, you just have to be there. And at the other end of the day, the moonlight twinkling across the waves...

Often I'll pick up a colour combination from a random thing, a pair of socks, some item of packaging, flowers, anything really. I love the ways colours fall next to each other on my desk, some of them just dare me to use them together. Sometimes, the results are not quite what I'd hoped for, and other times, I get something I'm really pleased with.

I like to play with techniques themselves, I find the shapes that can be created in glass quite fascinating, the way glass moves and melts, how it can be shaped by gravity and careful manipulating with tools. I love to layer techniques in a bead, I also like to use unique qualities of a particular glass, like EDP or silver black, as a design feature in itself. Lately I've been building my own special colours by layering transparents over opaques.

I've also been working a lot with silvered ivory stringer, goldstone and barnacle murrini, I keep sticking fins on things, although not a fish in sight!

A signature style is something I'm still working on, but the most 'me' range of beads are these, I just love playing with colours and textures together.

It's a style I keep coming back to, I've recently re-incarnated them in organic shades with silver glass, and another variant in steely metallic greys

My personality is somewhat quirky, I love colour, I'm a bit mad and eccentric at times, a hint of the butterfly, flitting from thing to thing, also a magpie like attraction to shiny things, my mind can be pretty cluttered at times, this shows in my desk and sometimes my work!

Flower buttons are one of my recent obsessions, can't stop making them, in different colours, sizes, layering colours in the petals, and the button mandrels themselves have been teasing me, when I first tried them I couldn't get the hang of them and so they sat around sulking for a while, I was determined to beat them, so I got them out and practised and practised and now I'm more or less happy with the holes!

Though I've mainly spoken about beads here, I do actually make jewellery, though I now see my silver jewellery as the supporting act for my glass, occasionally it tries to be the star, but its always the glass.

If you're still with us you can always find more about me and my work on my Website, Blog,Artfire, Facebook & flickr

My work is available in shops and galleries in Plymouth, Modbury, Dawlish, Chudleigh, Clevedon, Bristol, Oxford, and London

A big thank you to Sabine for this opportunity to share my work with you all!
Also, thankyou to helenfc for helping me out of a picture related blonde moment!