Pia Raeymaekers - Cast Glass Maker

FLOWERFIELD Arts Centre continues its development as a centre of creative excellence with the addition of a new member of the team and the opportunity to bring an exciting new hot-craft skill to the public.

Cast Glass Artist, Pia Raeymaekers, has just joined Flowerfield as the new artist in residence from 2009-2011.

Pia can be found in Studio1 on the Ground Floor of the Centre. She comes with experience of both the Czech School of glass making and Sunderland University, both internationally recognised centres of excellence in glass production and training.

Pia casts 2-dimensional art works in glass. This contemporary use of glass as an artistic medium is breaking new ground as a sculptural form and Pia brings her glass casting skills to Flowerfield to produce her own exciting new work and to give the students and public the chance to learn the skills needed for this particular form of "Hot Craft"

The process of glass casting is based on Kiln Firing which is why it is known as "Hot Craft". The artist starts by making a mould of a constructed or preformed artwork into which molten glass is introduced and left to solidify. The mould is then broken open and the cast glass work which can be artistically decorative or simply functional is then cleaned and finished. Though the technique is an ancient one which over the centuries has had varying forms it is only from the early 20th century that the use of modern technology, coupled with new types of glass has allowed a huge leap in the advancement of the casting process and radical development of cast glass as a creative form.  Modern cast glass is formed by a variety of processes casting into sand, graphite or metal moulds and using clear, coloured or patterned glass to make bigger, more exciting pieces of contemporary glass art.

Pia's artistic expression is given free reign with the forms and shapes she produces. Her studio glass pieces are heavily influenced by organic forms and the spirit of the natural world which runs as a rich source of inspiration through her work.       

Pia will be based at Flowerfield over the next two years. As a new member of the Artist community of the Causeway Coast, she is looking forward to exhibiting her work at Flowerfield and elsewhere in the area.Her work ranges in price and will be available for sale at Flowerfield. She is also available for private sales, commissions and exhibitions of her work.

Pia's residency at Flowerfield Arts Centre is supported by Coleraine Borough Council, The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Craft Northern Ireland.

You can contact her at Flowerfield Arts Centre, 185 Coleraine Road, Portstewart BT55 7HU, by telephone on (028) 7083 1401 or via e-mail at info@flowerfield.org.

A Word from Pia

Since I finished my MA in 2005, I have enjoyed the freedom of being a self employed cast glass artist in first Belgium, then the Czech Republic, then England and now Ireland.

My work is kiln formed and I work creatively by exploring the tension between the clarities and transparency, fragility and strength of this magical flexible substance called glass.

Glass as a material? Well firstly we usually expect it to be worked with in a certain way because of how we always presume it to behave. We expect it to be polished in a certain way and afterwards displayed in a certain way. Probably this is one of the main reasons why glass is still considered to be just a craft and not a sophisticated, complex and cultural art form. But here is a rare phenomenon, these glass expectations are not as they seem within the field of fine art and particularly in sculpture. Me, well I like to play about with these presumed elements because glass can do so many unexpected things, so why not display a work that is not polished, but left rough, and why not handle glass like any other material, and discover how to stretch the boundaries of its structural behaviour.

When I started my higher education I had to stay strongly focused solely on the development of my skills as a maker and learn about casting techniques so the transformation of my creative ideas into a finished work were always secondary to the acquisition of the skill. Now at last I can promote time to the freedom of the creative form because my technical development allows me to give more due attention to the design concept which I had put aside in the previous learning years.

Since I love making large kiln formed glass sculptures, I would like to further develop within my glass workshop the exploration of these unexpected properties and boundaries, and now because of my experience I can take this to new levels. To grow in your work you need to have the freedom to experiment.

Now there is the freedom to think sculptural, instead of making compromises because of technical difficulties.