Firstly an apology...
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There has been a very long gap since the last blog post, partly this was due to the pressure of work, deadlines were everywhere in the run up to Christmas and then on into the new year, but mostly it was due to the fact that I did not have a working computer and had have data recovered from a damaged hard drive. Now that that is all behinds me we can get back to work. This post should have appeared back in November, (and once again my apologies to Griet, Paul and Yoshida San for the delay) and deals with a glass art residency here in Kobe... 

Blue Moment. Glass + Dance + Movie 1-17 November 2017
Naked Craft Project Volume 2.

During the first half of November the second volume of The Naked Crafts Project took pace here in Kobe. I was lucky enough to see the exhibition and meet with the artists involved and discuss their work…

When people think about visiting Japan Kobe is probably not high on their list of destinations. It does not have the scale or intensity of Tokyo or Osaka or the artistic heritage and history of Kyoto, yet with a population of one and half million people it is not an insignificant city. Sitting with Griet Beyaert and Paul Miller  (pictured to the left with Nobuyasu Yoshida) in a small wine bar in the Shin Nagata area of Kobe I mention that this unshowy city could perhaps be considered as the baseline existence for many people in everyday Japan. They seem to find this idea interesting and we swap stories about our respective experiences of Japan inbetween our main discussion of the work that has brought them to here. 

Griet and Paul are participants in the Naked Craft Project, a residency opportunity for artists working with glass to come to Kobe and create work. The project is spearheaded by local artist Nobuyasu Yoshida who runs a small studio creating works for sale and exhibition and who is also keen to explore dialogues with other artists. 

The work created for the project is an extension of the installations that Griet and Paul have been staging for several years. Paul works with projection mapping, projecting animations and film onto areas of buildings, interior spaces or objects. Griet creates fused glass panels and objects with a highly granular texture that interact with Paul’s films, refracting them and creating shadowed areas within the installation space. The result is mesmerising. 

The installation in Kobe is housed in an old school building that has been repurposed as a community arts centre. A corner of a third floor stairwell has been curtained off creating a small impromptu theatre. Pauls projection, images of the school building blended with images of the Kobe docks and accompanied by locally recorded sounds looped and distorted to create an ambient wash of music, flood the space with pastel coloured light. Griet’s glasswork, hanging from the ceiling cannot initially be separated from the projected images. It takes repeated viewings for images to gradually coalesce into something more concrete. This gradual reveal of more and more detail is beguiling and surely one of the things that is bringing a young local boy back for repeated viewings. We are told he has viewed the installation four times so far and each time returned with friends. 

Asking how the project came about Griet tells me of seeing information about the residency opportunity via the Contemporary Glass Society in the UK. Both Paul and Griet are based in the UK although Griet herself is Belgian. Griet responded to the notice for the residency and over several emails discussing ideas with Yoshida San (in Japan everyone is a San!) it became clear he was interested in the collaborative work she does with Paul. 

So, was it hard working in Japan? There are after all significant cultural and language differences between here and the UK. Both artists shake their heads. There were practical concerns with shipping and hanging the glass, and installing the projection equipment but Paul mentions that being here in person, being able to physically gesture and demonstrate through actions what needed to be done, things actually went very smoothly. It is interesting to note that Yoshida San himself suggested the theme of the “Blue Moment” which specifically talks about the quality of light just after the sun sets. If anything the language barrier seems to have energisied both of them rather than held them back. During the course of their residency they have facilitated drawing workshops and also collaborated with a dancer who performed within the installation space. 

Today is the last full day that the work will be exhibited. Tomorrow will be a half day followed by the procedure of take down and packing after which Griet and Paul have some time to explore Japan, but they are already looking ahead to future projects one of which will be to work as part of an exhibition exploring contemporary glass art with the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. 

We leave the wine bar and pay a final visit to the installation. The boy and his friends are back again, sitting in the dark, hypnotised by the ever-shifting lights.


For more information about the work of Griet Bayeart and Paul Miller follow the links below…


The Light Within, Blackwell Arts & Crafts House - Bowness-on-Windermere

Kinetic Flux, Manchester Science Festival

The Glass Cyphers, Left Bank Leeds

For more information about the Naked Craft Project and the work of Nobuyasu Yoshida log onto
https://www.facebook.com/glassand/

https://www.facebook.com/Naked-Craft-Project-1243505532346420/

Ever since I set up as a freelance engraver I've taken on a variety of what would be termed "commercial" jobs. These are jobs that are done simply to earn money to pay the bills. They can be as simple as engraving a happy birthday dedication onto the side of a perfume bottle or as complex as a detailed portrait of someone's pet dog. It's a world away from creating an exhibition piece which would be painstakingly thought through from concept to composition to execution. But to dismiss these jobs as being less important than exhibition work is to do them a disservice. For a start it is one of the few times I get a real interaction with the people who look at and buy my engravings, and that is important for several reasons. 

The interaction with customers allows you to gauge what is successful about your work. Having an item sell is always a good sign but watching a customer handle the finished work, seeing them inspect it and leave smiling tells you an awful lot about what works and what does not. It allows you to choose designs that engage with people. It allows you to refine your skill and when you do have an actual exhibition there is a ready fan base of people to come along and see it.

One of the most regular types of commercial work I do is engraving at inshore events. During my time living in Singapore I regularly worked for cosmetics companies engraving on perfume bottles. It was always a challenge to produce neat and precise work in the crowds that fill a department store. I do similar work here in Japan but instead engrave on fountain pens and Ink bottles. Each event demands new designs as repeat customers keep coming back and the available space to work on the cap of a pen is predictably tiny. It's a new sort of challenge to work at that tiny scale and can feel very much like a performance with customers leaning over to watch as you work. 

It was and is a challenge. It keeps my skills sharp and earns me living. It may be commercial but it's every bit as important as "exhibition work.

For anyone who happens to be in the Osaka area I will be engraving for Nagasawa, working on fountain pens and ink bottles at Nagasawa branch located in Umeda on the 4th Nov.

Years back, when I was a student at the Edinburgh College of Art, I had a meeting with the artist David Reekie. He looked over my work and told me, "It's interesting, but the quality of your drawing is only just there". 

This comment has haunted me. It's a well judged bit of criticism. Honest, concise and brutally to the point with just enough hint of encouragement to motivate you to do more. As I say it's haunted me. I look at my drawings and ask myself is it good enough?

Most days I think not, and its for this reason I practice every day, but its harder than you might think to find the time to do so. When you are a student you have plenty of time to practice. There are probably even scheduled drawing classes in the college that it is mandatory to attend. These days I have to fit my drawing practice around answering emails from potential clients, checking my schedule for meetings, worrying about delivery deadlines, packing boxes, sorting receipts for the tax return, hunting desperately for the next job to make sure the bills get paid. In short there are a thousand things that get in the way of the creative bit of being an artist.

So, the daily drawings that I do are miniatures. They range in size from 4cm x 4xcm up to 15cm x 10cm. Most take an hour, if I am lucky I can squeeze two into a morning. They are rendered in ball point pen for speed and because I can approximate many of the marks I make with the engraving drill with a ball point pen. 

It must be said that the humble Bic Biro is actually a wonderful drawing tool. The ink can be applied in thin lines or dots to give very pale tones or layer to create a rich velvety thickness. 

Every day, as soon as the drawing is complete it is photographed and posted on my instagram account. (Hey hey! Self promotion. I'm a working artist, what did you expect?) dominicfondeglass@instagram if anyone is interested. 

Are they good enough yet? Is the quality "there" yet? It depends what your criteria for good is I suppose, but i like to think I'm making progress. So, time to start drawing. I'll see you on instagram as soon as todays drawing is done.

Alongside the news page, which basically announces upcoming events and exhibitions I thought I'd add a blog page to the site. On here I'll post occasional commentaries relating to my projects and maybe an exhibition review every now and then. It's a chance for me to flex my muscles as a writer as much as anything else. In the past I've written for the Contemporary Glass Society, Ausglass, and a couple  of magazines under Marshall Cavendish Education in Singapore. Most prominently I've engraved my own short stories onto my glass vessels making short story writing an integral part of my artistic practice. The stories took a back seat to images of birds for while but, I've been writing a lot recently, so its very likely some new stories will be debuted on this page in due time. 

Thanks for reading!

Dominic