Neil Wilkin
1959, United Kingdom
Is his own words:
"As a child, I wanted to be a geologist. My father introduced me to materials and science by bringing home as many different elements as he could and I remember shiny metals, black carbon and vivid yellow sulphur.
The geology beneath our feet shapes and colours our environment in every way. From the rusty iron of the red Australian outback, to the sunshine on the ground which drives our weather, not least the rain in the verdant Welsh hills where the folded rocks turn everything upside down, and we have a pool at the top of the hill.
It was colour and heat that first pulled me towards the furnace at college. I had gone to work with my hands as a potter and left obsessed with fire and glass making. I just enjoy making whether building a shed or a furnace or making things grow in the garden there are not enough hours in the day to do all the making I need to do.
Since Rachael (Woodman, fellow glass artist) and I started our first workshop in Bath, in 1984, my making skills have developed by realising the ideas of others, and in the 'melting pot' of many visiting artists I got my fix of glassmaking and colour. Over the last 10 years, I have travelled and worked with different materials and methods, but I find myself more at home back in front of the furnace.
When I blow glass the colours in glass behave like layers of rock. Hard and soft, absorbing and transmitting heat just as they do light. The challenge in my new work is to encourage the form to flow, yet at the same time to allow those layers to pull and draw, a combination of refinement control and freedom."
Victoria and Albert Museum, London | Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Bristol | Crafts Council, London | Cultureel Centrum De Adelberg, Stad Lommel, Belgium | Glasmuseum alter Hof Herding, Coesfeld, Germany | Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Artist portrait by Stephen Heaton.