A million years ago, dinosaurs walked an earth heaving with volcanic activity.
It is believed one massive volcanic eruption may have ended their days on earth. Eons on and in one hot glass studio in Bali, a collaboration of hot glass artists from France and the US are bringing life back to dinosaurs in glass sculptures forged at explosive temperatures.
Artists Ron Seivetson, Regis Anchuelo, Francis Auboiron and archeologist and cold glass artist, Julien Espagne, are currently completing a body of works, The Glass Age, that will be exhibited at Duta Fine Art Gallery in Jakarta in June this year.
Inspired by pre-history and Java Man, the artists working collaboratively — called The Five Elements — are blowing hot glass into dinosaur skulls, human bones, spears and fossil like forms at Ron’s Horizon Glass works “hotshop” in homage to world renowned glass blower William Morris and the archeological history of Seivertson’s adopted nation, Indonesia.
“The Java Man notion occurred to me, as many things do, when I was riding my motor cycle. I have a huge amount of respect for the country [Indonesia] and the people and one thing I wanted to do with archeologist, Julien, Regis and Francis, was create a foundation in regard to where we are and within that wanting to pay respect to this country,” says Ron of the formative ideas behind The Five Elements collaboration.
He explains that techniques developed by the five elements within Horizon Glassworks for the “The Glass Age” show have never before been attempted and break new ground in glass making.
“The prehistory idea started with Julien flint napping the spear heads, or glass flaking. This is cold glass work. We make the hot glass blanks for him then when these are annealed [cooled and set], Julien grinds the edges and flakes it to form the spearhead. The results are astounding and the first time man has done this in 7,000 years [of glass production],” says Ron.
He adds it takes two teams of four men to then create the hot glass spear shaft, reheat the spear head and work these pieces together, all in molten glass that has a temperature above 1,000 degrees Celsius.
It is at this point that viewers at Horizon Glassworks hold their breath in wonder.
“This is a heartbreaking medium. You can have 100 failures to get that one piece that is so wonderful. One of my earliest teachers said ‘get used to it right now, your best pieces will end up on the floor,’” says Ron of hot glass, which is considered one of the most arduous art forms.
The spears in “The Glass Age” collection are, says Ron, the most difficult pieces, however the massive blown dinosaur skull, is also not an easy afternoons work.
“The skull is blown and sculpted in one section, including the teeth; the lower jaw was formed separately,” explains Regis, who at just 29 years of age has been working with hot glass for 14 years, studying at the prestigious Jean Monnet School in France.
He says that when a glass blower begins a piece it must be completed while the glass is hot — there is no going back. It is this tension and demand inherent in the material that has kept Regis obsessed since his early teens.
“The first time I saw glass being made I knew I wanted this. When I saw the glass during a school orientation I no longer wanted to be at school, I just wanted to move with the glass. But this is most difficult because it takes 10 years of study before you can begin to make glass in France. We have a long culture of glassmaking,” says Regis who has worked with Francis as his apprentice for many years.
For Regis, it is the liquidity of hot glass that excites, its fluxes and fire.
“The fire, the material, for me the glass is my wife. It’s so exciting, but you can not touch it — there is always the barrier of intense heat, but you always want to touch,” says Regis who traveled to Bali to collaborate with Ron, Julien and Francis in the creation of The Glass Age.
“Glass is one breath, working together. With Francis, it’s like dancing. In this project, we are all working with new people and there is a different interpretation of glass, different languages and natures, but we work in the same material,” says Regis of the cross cultural collaboration that has also informed The Glass Age compositions.
At 23 years of age, Francis Auboiron is the youngest in the glass team. He like Regis studied at Jean Monnet in Moulins, France, and like Regis has been passionate about the mysteries of glass since childhood.
“I lived near the [glass] school as a child and I saw hot glass every day and knew I wanted to make this,” says Francis who until his Bali collaboration was a student of Regis.
He explains it is the intensity of glass that keeps him forever excited and keen to learn more. “Hot glass looks easy. It is so smooth and fluid, but it is really difficult and intense because when you start you need to finish and it is immediate — the body and brain comes together in this art,” says Francis who has been studying hot glass for the past eight years.
Working in collaboration with other hot glass artists has been another learning curve for Francis, who says when he arrived in Bali, he was not sure which direction the team would take.
“Julien is an archeologist doing his PhD in Indonesia — so that was an interesting starting point. Then we also all liked very much William Morris’s’ primitive works, so we thought ok, here we go. I am surprised at our capacity, but this is just the beginning and I know I need to get better and better,” says a modest Francis.
Hot glass art is reasonably new to Asia, according to Ron who took a wild punt, moved his studio and life to Bali four years ago and opened Horizon Glassworks.
The punt paid off and there is a growing band of glass collectors throughout the region, says Ron, hence The Glass Age is set to be the centerpiece of Duta Fine Art Gallery’s re-opening in June.
