Abstract

This is practice-based research about glass art, undertaken by an artist specialising in the lampworking technique. Over many centuries, lampworking has been widely used for scientific, industrial and craft purposes. In the early 1990s, there was a notable shift where traditional lampworking began merging with contemporary glass art, but there is still room for further development. The research focus is line-making through lampworking. Building upon Hoyt (1989), who determined the fundamental procedures in lampworking, this research identifies five operations relating to line-making: ‘bending’, ‘stretching’, ‘thickening’, ‘adding’ and ‘tooling’. Before this research, these techniques were already well practised in traditional lampwork training. However, they were recognised as only basics to construct larger pieces, and line-making itself did not gain real attention. Neither has the theoretical concept of making lines in glass been discussed enough. This research re-examines each of these operations and searches for dormant possibilities to exploit for artistic expression. The significance of glass lines is discussed in comparison to other line-making techniques and media in visual art. The taxonomy of lines advocated by Ingold (2007) is referred to as a guide for deeper exploration in this field. The investigation highlights the unique material feature of glass and contributes the idea of ’spatial traces’ and ‘projected lines’ to the discussion. A series of artworks is subsequently made to demonstrate and evaluate the research outcomes.
The particular innovation generated by this research is the development of ‘calligraphic lampworking’, which is technically an extension of the ‘stretching’ operation. The act of stretching molten glass is observed to be comparable to ink calligraphy, in that they both leave a trace of movement. The distinctive difference is that the strokes of calligraphic lampworking are spatially liberated, whereas those of ink calligraphy are confined to the plane of a two-dimensional surface. The ‘multi-dimensionality’ of glass lines is also theoretically explored and discussed in terms of the glass’s clarity, reflections and shadows.