SATURDAY
9.15 Welcome. Opening Remarks
9.30 'Der Neue Mensch tanzt/The New Man Dances' (dance as the expression and abstraction of the corporeal in Germany in the 1920s) Keynote Presentation
Many of us are familiar with the fantastic costume creations and the dances manifested in the 'Triadic Ballet' of Oscar Schlemmer, but fewer people are aware of contrasting work done around the same time by Lavinia Schulz and Walter Holdt in Hamburg. Dr Rüdiger Joppien will speak about and show images of the truly amazing things these artists created, and will discuss his thoughts about the two very different realms of human existence and emotion which the dance/art of Schlemmer and Schulz/Holdt represent.
Dr Joppien is Curator and Head of the Department of Art Nouveau and 20th Century European Deorative Arts at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Hamburg. In that capacity he has curated many exhibitions and has been responsible for numerous publications about the applied arts.
10.30 Morning Coffee
11.00 'Form balance and Symmetry'
Prof Magdalene Odundo says: 'I try to creat shapes and lines that attract people inside the pieces in a way that you might want to climb inside the heart of a person you meet so that your knowledge of what's within might enlighten what you see on the exterior. To wish that this inner sense of being, human and spiritual be embodied in the vessel and the work I make is thrilling, exciting and fills me with a sense of adventure in every way.' In her lecture Magdalene will discuss her thinking processes, sources of inspiration, and their relationship to her work and herself.
12.00 '25 years of working in the Northwest'
Dante Marioni was introduced to the medium glass by simple exposure to it at a very young age. He grew up working in glass studios, where he was surrounded by many of the best known and respected artists, such as his father Paul Marioni, Benjamin Moore, Dale Chihuly and Richard Marquis. In his lecture Dante will talk about the people, places and objects that have inspired him and his work during the 25 years he has been working in the Seattle studio glass scene.
13.00 Lunch
14.00 'Letterforms'
Letters on paper or on screens, in stone, textile, or in other materials, these all share the same highly abstract basic shapes. With the letterforms come counter-forms and spaces and interpretations of all these forms, and the need to adapt these forms to technical requirements, personal views, the influences of time and place and more. Using his own work and his thoughts about it to illustrate these things, Prof Dr Gerard Unger will offer a deeper look into the little known but exciting world of meaning in the form of the letters we use to communicate with each other.
Gerard Unger is a typographer and type designer. His newspaper typeface 'Gulliver' is familiar to tens of millions of readers, as it is the typeface used in both 'USA Today' and several European newspapers. Gerard Unger is Professor of Typography at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, and he teaches as visiting Professor at The University of Reading, UK.
15.00 'Form & Narrative: A Personal Journey'
A constant influence in the work of David Reekie is politics and how society affects our lives. He says: 'We live in a world that grows more complex and difficult to comprehend. It has tensions and temptations that pull us in different directions. This creates characters and situations that provide a constant source of material from which I take ideas.' In his lecture David Reekie will trace the development of form and narrative in his work and how each has dictated to the other. Citing his influences and his drawings David Reekie will speak of the directions in which this oftentimes surreal journey has taken him.
16.00 Tea and a visit to Camster Cairns These Neolithic chambered cairns are older than the pyramids, forms man-made in stone
19.30 Conference Party
SUNDAY
9.15 'Telling Tales: Fantasy and fear in contemporary design'
Gareth Williams is Senior Tutor of Design Products at the Royal College of Art. Before he joined the 'Royal' in 2009, he spent 18 years at the Victoria and Albert Museum, curating Twentieth Century and Contemporary Furniture. The last exhibition he curated at the V&A was the design show 'Telling Tales' in 2009.
About the background for this exhibition he says: 'In the last few years a new spirit of adventure and ambition has permeated through the work of product and furniture designers who increasingly initiate their own works, often made in small editions or as unique pieces. These works, described as 'design art', draw on shared human experiences and share a narrative quality, speaking to us of subjects greater than their immediate utility: they tell us tales. In the 'Telling Tales' exhibition, I showcased about 50 works by contemporary designers and in the accompanying book I tried to analyze how we might regard this way of working. I will speak about this, in more detail in this lecture.'
10.15 'Searching for Form and Composition'
"How important are those 'old fashioned' terms, form and composition for us at the present time? What caused the crisis in the glass movement? Are people going about collecting glass differently then they used to? Glass and Art......symbiosis or contradiction?" These are subjects which Anna Matoušková will discuss in her lecture, showing examples of her own work and those of other artists to support the talk.
11.15 Morning Coffee
Demonstration in the Alastair Pilkington Studio by Dante Marioni and Benjamin Moore.
12.30 Lunch
13.45 'Form follows function - ornament is crime'
Two Modern Movement tenets of faith which Charles Rennie Mackintosh either redefined or ignored. Is he still a 'pioneer of modern design?' Roger Billcliffe will explore Mackintosh's relationship with the Modern Movement as evidenced by his work as a designer of interiors and their furnishings. The Glasgow-born architect, painter and designer Mackintosh had a total vision, designing the buildings from the inside out. An example of this vision and a lasting legacy is most evident in the Glasgow School of Art.
Roger Billcliffe is a Glasgow gallery owner and has published widely on Scottish Art of the last hundred years. His books include several works on Charles Rennie Macintosh. Prior to the opening of his gallery in 1992, he was the Director of The Fine Art Society, responsible for the Society's two Scottish galleries in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
14.45 'An American Glass Journey'
About his workBenjamin Moore says: 'The fundamental concern and focus of my work is to achieve simplicity, balance and clarity of form. The true challenge of creating an object is to give the piece a timeless presence or quality.' In his lecture Benjamin will give a survey of his work and career including the running of his collaborative work oriented studio for 25 years, and his affiliation with the Pilchuck Glass School, where over the past 35 years he has played a most important role.
15.45 Question Time
Panel discussion with questions from the floor for our conference speakers, led by Tina Oldknow Curator of Modern Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass.
16.30 Concluding Remarks and drinks.
The Conference is sponsored in part by the Corning Museum of Glass, Corning USA.
Enquiries
North Lands Creative Glass
Quatre Bras, Lybster
Caithness, KW3 6BN
SCOTLAND
Accommodation, bookings and general information:
Lorna MacMillan: Telephone: +44 (0)1593 721 229 Fax: +44 (0)1593 721 850
e-mail: info@northlandsglass.com
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22 December 2009
