Cracked with Chevonne Ariss
“Cracked with Chevonne Ariss” is a stained glass podcast that takes a deep dive with today’s biggest names from around the world in modern stained glass. Artists have a frank and honest conversation with Chevonne about their style, legacy, their losses and wins, their journey into becoming a small business owner and how they didn’t lose their minds getting there. Season 5 coming soon!
Cracked with Chevonne Ariss
From The Outback to The Alps with Nadine Keegan and Tom Medicus
Today’s guests are the dynamic duo Nadine Keegan and Tom Medicus. I was able to catch them both at the same time while Nadine is visiting Tom’s studio in Austria. Although their work is strikingly different, they both have done a brilliant job bringing meaningful topics and statements into their work. Keep listening and you’ll agree! Join me as I crack it wide open...
Nadine: After spending 3 years studying fine art photography at RMIT and PIC, she became disillusioned with the orthodox methods of image making and work style of a fine art photographer. A few years past and many less artistic pursuits were explored when, with a visit to the solar-punk stained glass mural Cosmovitrial in Toluca, Mexico she finally discovered the creative industry which aligned with her ideals. While realizing the potential that exists within the craft that I had not yet seen in Australia. Solidifying her obsession with research into the stained glass window's development through the 20th century, with the manifestations of the Arts and Crafts anti-industrialisation ideals embedded in it's design and construction. Through her work, she celebrates both the legacy of the craft laid out before her and the potentiality of the materials when manipulated with a contemporary perspective and up-to-date technology. Her experience includes custom stained glass fabrication, heritage restoration, architectural glass work and exhibition works. To see more of Nadine's work, her instagram is @nadinekeegan.
Tom: Thomas Medicus is a visual artist based in Innsbruck, Austria. Best known for his anamorphic cubes he also works in other fields such as illustration, animation, digital art, stained glass, restoration and conservation as well as public art. He studied social work at MCI Innsbruck before attending the Glasfachschule Kramsach, a school for glass art, where he earned a master glaziers degree later. In addition to his independent activity as a freelance artist, he was employed in the long-standing firm for stained glass windows Tiroler Glasmalerei for seven years. From the beginning of 2021 he became completely independent and founded his company Studio Medicus. To see more of Tom's work, his instagram is @tomedicus.
Nadine's:
sainer.org
regantamanui.com
@jaaaaameswilson
@jordanb_art
davidwrightstudio.com
@duckragu
@george.goodnow
Hannah Gregory
runaglassworks.com
Jenna Zavattiero
@stayglassyglass
Tom's:
ROA
@roa_archive
Pat Perry
@heypatyeah
Judith Schaechter
runaglassworks.
Canfield sets the standard for the Stained Glass industry.
Paul Wissmach Glass Co.
Your Source of Colored Sheet Glass
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Hello, hello, and welcome back to Cracked with Siobhan Aris. First things first, I'd like to thank this episode's sponsors. First up is Wismac Glass. Ever wonder how Wismac develops its distinct palette of colors? Recipes over a century old of chemicals and compounds mixed with limestone, soda, ash, and sand are heated to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit in one of their 13 fire brick furnaces. Unique blends of two to five colors with varying degrees of transparency are mixed by hand before being rolled out and annealed. The new owners of Wismac are excited to provide these same high quality products that artists know and love. Learn more about Wismac art and kiln glass by visiting their website of wismacglass.com following at wismac underscore glass on Instagram or calling 304-337-2253 to schedule a visit to their factory outlet in Payton City, West Virginia. I'd also like to thank Canfield Technologies. No one else in the industry has a better brand following. Find out why at canfieldmetals.com. Today's guests are the dynamic duo Nadine Keegan and Tom Medicus. I was able to catch them both at the same time while Nadine is visiting Tom's studio in Austria. A bit about Nadine. After spending three years studying fine art photography at RMIT and PIC, she became disillusioned with the orthodox methods of image making and work style of the fine art photographer. A few years passed and many less artistic pursuits were explored when, with a visit to the solar punk stained glass mural Cosmovitral in Toluca, Mexico, she finally discovered the creative industry which aligned with her ideals. Solidifying her obsession with research into the stained glass window's development through the 20th century, with the manifestations of the arts and crafts anti-industrialization ideals embedded in its design and construction. Through her work, she celebrates both the legacy of the craft laid out before her and the potential of the materials when manipulated with a contemporary perspective and up-to-date technology. Now, a bit about Tom. Tom Medicus is a visual artist based in Innsbruck, Austria. Best known for his anamorphic cubes, he also works in other fields such as illustration, animation, digital art, stained glass, restoration, and conservation, as well as public art. He studied social work at MCI Innsbruck before attending school for glass art, where he earned a master glazer's degree later. In addition to his independent activity as a freelance artist, he was employed in a long-standing firm for stained glass windows. From the beginning of 2021, he became completely independent and founded his company, Studio Medicus. Both these artists Their work is very different, but they both have done a brilliant job bringing meaningful topics and statements into their work. Keep listening and you'll agree. Join me as I crack it all wide open.
SPEAKER_03:Hi.
SPEAKER_02:Hi. Hi. Hi. Hello, hello. It's 7 p.m. there, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Okay. Long day?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's a pretty long day, actually. Yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. Yeah. Are you guys, tell me why you're together, first of all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I'm just visiting Tom for the week here. Okay. Because I, yeah, it's like, because I got a stained glass fellowship from an institution. in Australia. And so I'm going around to Europe to visit Stainglass Studios. And so I was just like, oh, it's perfect to do this while I'm with Tom. Yeah. Yeah. So it's good that you agreed to it as well. Thank you for that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And you guys are both in Austria right now, correct? Tom, you live in Austria. Are you from Austria?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I'm from Austria. Yeah. And I have my studio here and yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And then Nadine, you're from Australia. Yeah, yeah. Okay, just wanted to make sure I had it all right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's kind of a weird situation, me being here. Like the aim of the fellowship was to learn just traditional skills from European studios and then like bring that back to Australia and disseminate it amongst like my community back in Australia. Industry is pretty small in Australia and so So yeah, like with Tom, we've been doing heaps of installation stuff, which has been good. And then I was at Derek's last week. They're in a small town just outside of Frankfurt. Okay. Yeah, and they do like, there's like 40 people in that studio. And they're like artisans more. So they get like, they do artists. So they do like Brian Clark's stuff. And they do, like, big architectural stuff. But, yeah, so they don't, like, design stuff. They just do the, like, an artist will come to them and sometimes the artist hasn't worked in glass before, but they'll get, like, a glass commission and then they'll get Derek's to just make, like, yeah make their design for them so that was really good because I learned so many different like there's 40 people working there and I was just walking around like asking people questions for like three days so yeah that was awesome they're massive like they're I think they're one of the biggest stained glass studios yeah yeah they're one of the big
SPEAKER_03:studios definitely like Mayers and yeah like there are maybe three or four companies like this in Germany I
SPEAKER_02:And Tom, for you, this is totally outside of what you normally do. I saw some photos that you posted on Instagram of you helping out with this installation, but I had never seen anything like that from you before. So is this a new chapter of your career?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You mean like doing stuff in churches, like restoration stuff?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:No, actually, I'm doing this since 10 years.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, really?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. So in the meantime, I'm completely self-employed. But I was hired in a firm for stained glass restoration for seven years, but I was only part-time there. and I always did my own art projects like next to it and two years ago I made myself completely self-employed and now I'm basically doing the same like before just without a boss so I'm like but I'm still doing both pretty much like art projects but also restoration projects maybe I'm just like in my social media I'm more present with my art because the restoration project is more something that works more locally because it happens a lot in churches in local churches so I don't really see the point and also like I don't want to be perceived as a religious artist or like a spiritual artist so that's why I don't post so much about churches and restoration in my social media
SPEAKER_02:yeah that makes sense but that's such a wonderful surprise to know that you've been doing it for so long and that you're actually very knowledgeable about it. That's not a new thing that you just jumped into. No,
SPEAKER_03:that's not.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so Nadine, I want to start with you. We will talk about glass, but first there is a much more pressing issue that I have to ask you about. Do you have a cockatiel?
SPEAKER_01:No. A bird? I think my friend does. I think if you saw a video on Instagram. Yes. Okay. My friend does. Yeah, it's cute. It's like a rescue cockatiel that just like rocks up at his house one day. Yeah. Yeah, it's super cute.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, just wanted to make sure because I have a fascination with people that have birds as pets just like in general, but a cockatiel to me is such like, it has like a very 80s branding to it for some reason. Like it was very, I feel like it was like hot in the 80s to have a cockatiel.
SPEAKER_01:Is this
SPEAKER_02:tracking at all what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01:I think it was like, I can imagine like cockatiel like lead lights that people made in the 80s or like cockatoo ones. yeah um but yeah not really I don't think birds are that common of a pet anymore no um but yeah I think the fact that he got it as a rescue is super cute and yeah he actually posted one today of him like scratching its little neck and it's I've always wanted a bird friend and to see a bird that close up is so cute because normally you just see them in trees and stuff um so So I'm pretty jealous, but yeah, I would want the bird to come to me rather than like buying a bird
SPEAKER_02:or something, you know. I totally agree with you. I think it's strange to have birds in cages, but if... if yeah, if it comes to you as a rescue and it doesn't know how to live in the wild, then I guess you kind of have to take advantage of the fact that that's, that's the only way you can have a bird. My daughter is seven and she really wants a cockatiel. And I've been trying to figure out like, is that even, well, first of all, we have a really big dog that has a really intense prey drive. So I don't think it would be a good idea, but I was also thinking like, how could that even, how could I even like make that a reality? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. yeah I think people in Australia used to like all of our grandparents used to have like cockatoos as pets I think that they just like took out of the wild at one point yeah um but they're also really loud cockatoos like you probably wouldn't want one as a pet yeah
SPEAKER_02:they are but is that the one that's not like a um that's not like a what's the kind of bird that like copies what you say oh
SPEAKER_01:like a parrot yeah um yeah I think they do that too I think all parrots like do that in in some way but yeah cockatiels are Australian I think that like the they're from Australia they're like native to Australia okay I'm pretty sure I think so I don't know I don't know Oh, yeah. Australia has good birds though. I did know that. I
SPEAKER_02:have heard that. I don't know much about the birds in Australia, but I have heard that there's some good bird watching happening over there. Yeah. Okay, Nadine, I was reading your bio and it says, this is how it starts. It says, after spending three years studying fine art photography, I became disillusioned with the orthodox methods of image making and work style of the fine art photographer. A few years passed and many less artistic pursuits were explored when, with a visit to the solar punk stained glass mural Cosmo Vitriol in Toluca, Mexico, I finally discovered the creative industry which aligned with my ideals. While realizing the potential that exists within the craft that I had not yet seen in Australia. I want you to tell me everything you know about this place in Mexico because I actually didn't know about it. And when I looked it up after reading that, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is crazy. Well, it's, I mean, even the fact that I stumbled upon it when I was in Mexico, it just feels like everything just aligned perfectly because, yeah, so it mentions, like, solarpunk in there and it's, like, kind of a, like, people don't really know about solarpunk, but it's this, like, utopian vision, like, as opposed to cyberpunk and dieselpunk and all these, like, like speculative fiction. We should think about the future as really dystopian. Solarpunk is this utopian vision of the future. So I got really obsessed with that when I was in Mexico City and I was just looking at this blog and it was like, if there was a headquarters for Solarpunk, it would be this place that was an hour away from where I was. So I could have been anywhere in the world. And it was an hour away. So I went there the next day. And, yeah, it's this old marketplace that they've turned into a botanic garden, so an indoors botanic garden. And then the entire perimeter is all stained glass. And then, like, the roof, like the middle section of the roof is stained glass as well. And it's this, like, night and day, light and dark sort of. of imagery. It's by Leopold Flores, who's a Mexican artist. Yeah, and then I saw that and I was just like, oh, okay, yeah, I want to do stained glass because I had quit my job before going on that trip. And then I'd already seen LED lights in the, like, arts and crafts, American craftsmanship houses in California, so I already was thinking, like, oh, LED lights are pretty cool. And then on that same trip I went to that place and I was just like oh this is the best art form ever yeah so if anyone's in Mexico an hour away from Mexico City and yeah even talking to other glass people they don't really know about it so and I reckon it's like one of the wonders of the world to be honest
SPEAKER_02:yeah I totally agree with you once I saw it I was like wait what is this place and I kind of got lost in a internet search and imagery and read And it's a really cool place. I definitely urge any of our listeners to Google it and check it out. And you know what? I'll put a link to it in the show notes as well. So it'll be very accessible. I read in an interview, you said, I really liked the idea of the arts and crafts movement, which was a rejection of the mass-made manufacturing popping off during the industrial revolution. I knew I wanted to live like them. So I had to learn a craft or a trade. Stained glass kind of ticked all the boxes ideologically and creatively. Can you expand on that a little bit? What did you mean when you said, well, first of all, what did you mean by the arts and crafts movement was a rejection of the mass-made manufacturing popping off during the Industrial Revolution?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it was, you know, around about like, well, the Industrial Revolution. So William Morris and like John Ruskin kind of started it in England. And it was when people, there was like, people it was just mass production so everyone's home goods were mass produced everything was sort of getting like um like the styles everyone just had the same stuff in their houses um so it's an aesthetic but it's also this like this like social movement too because they William Morris became a socialist when he was like 50 um and he believed that um one people should would have, like, beauty in their lives because he realised that the world was becoming just really uniform. But then he also realised that people working in the factories during, like, Victorian era England, it was a really bad way for people to work, like, on, like, pre-production lines, but, like, pretty much that. So he thought if people, like, learnt to craft and handmade, like, a piece of furniture from the start to finish, then that's, like, an honest that's a good a good way to work um so I really liked that idea that making stuff for people um I just saw like the I just thought that was the best way to spend your time and so I yeah so that's how that's that's why I reckon that's how I got into it were there any crafts that were runners up not really to be honest I think um like I tried my hands in jewelry making did a little bit of woodworking but yeah nothing really I wasn't I just felt not that excited about those things so yeah like no stained glass was pretty much like the first one that I realized it kind of ticked all the things and it's something that um you don't have to be really strong to do it like like metal work and stuff and like making um you know like in a foundry you have to be it was something that I could like sit at a desk can do still. Right. For some parts of the process. So it's the best one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It
SPEAKER_02:is. It really is. We can all agree that. So you're in Mexico. You see this stained glass. You feel sure about it. What's the next step? You go back home and how do you learn?
SPEAKER_01:So Australia at the time didn't have any formal education. It did, I think, in the 80s maybe but yeah so I just sent out emails to all the studios that I could find on the internet and I eventually got a job with one of them that ended it really badly but that doesn't matter I just realized that I had to make it work on my own so I started learning from the internet and that's why I started with like the Tiffany technique because it was something that I didn't need to know the like formal techniques for it was something that I could sort of like work out myself um and then after that I think because I was just really obsessed with it I um was able to get a job at a really good stained glass studio in Australia and so then I worked there for a bit and learned some conservation stuff and painting and all the traditional techniques
SPEAKER_02:yeah and something really neat and special about your work is that you don't use copper foil You use something called slug and snail guard. Can you tell us more about this product?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:yeah so i did use it yeah i did use that but then it um they stopped producing it um but it is copper foil but it's just marketed for gardeners and so it's the copper tape that you put around garden beds to stop snails going into your plants um and it's just a lot cheaper than buying like stained glass specific copper foil uh but yeah so they stopped producing it and so now Now I use like I go on eBay and get like the electronic copper foil. So like the stuff that electricians use because it's just but it's copper bats and not black bat. So it kind of has its limitations. And then I also so I use like stained glass copper foil specific like specific stuff sometimes. But yeah, that was because I was a horticulture. I worked. a nursery like a garden nursery before stained glass so I knew that that existed
SPEAKER_02:it's smart it's really smart especially if it does the trick and it's cheaper and also I saw a video of you using it and it's so thick so you probably you know you get a little bit more bang for your buck because of that as well
SPEAKER_01:yeah for sure but the electronic stuff that I like the stuff for electricians that I use now is even thicker so it's actually So it's actually better. Yeah. So I think if you just like Google, I mean, if you go on eBay and you just like look for copper tape, it'll come up with heaps of different sizes. That's
SPEAKER_02:a little glass tip right there, a little glass hack.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There you go.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:While commissions allow me to explore themes and genres I may not otherwise, my own artistic pursuit consistently comes back to the theme of Australian identity, the idiosyncrasies of our natural world and our relationship to it and each other. A lot of your work is mostly based on the flora and fauna of Australia, which makes sense since you did have this previous interest before you jumped into stained glass. And... I wanted to talk about one of my favorite pieces of yours. Actually, it kind of leads me right to it. You have one piece with Queensland fan palms and you said you think they look very alien. So you included real alien spaceships in the piece. And then there's another that has some orange trees and maybe some blue flowers. I don't know what kind. And it has like a big foot kind of creeping along. These kinds of Easter eggs, like something that's hidden inside a piece. It's one of my favorite treats in glasswork. It really is.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Yeah, I try to just make it more than just, I don't know, something that you can look at it a couple of times and see more things in it than you did at the start.
SPEAKER_02:And it's playful. It makes it like, I don't know, I like it better just because I feel like it's not so serious.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, for sure. I mean, that's it. Like I think I always want it to be playful and like I do, I think like art has more of a use than just like, I really like art that's just decorative, but I think it's easier to like say your message when you don't take it too seriously. But like, okay, that is like a really important thing though because I don't like taking myself too seriously and I think that art should be playful But I think that through that play, you can like talk about other things as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Great. You guys both make. statements about climate and politics in your work in a very clever way, which I appreciate. I read in a different interview, you said, the main thing materially that I'm constantly working on is how to eliminate the use of lead in the process. It's been used for 900 years in the craft, but I envision a future where it's not absolutely necessary. What are you doing in your work to eliminate it?
SPEAKER_01:I haven't got there completely yet But this is why I started experimenting with fused glass because it means with fused you can get the detail without having to have individual pieces of glass separated with lead lines. So I've really been trying to, so I've been experimenting heaps with lead and then, I mean, with fused and then surrounding that with zinc. um h channels um so Yeah, I think for architectural stuff, the Tiffany technique I think wasn't really that appropriate as well. So I kind of realised that I had to do something else. But, yeah, I'm just sort of experimenting. Like I don't know if I'm going to get to a point where I– because even now there's some times where I still use lead because there's no alternative. But, yeah, I just– just I think um I'm just seeing it's just sort of like a little project to see if I can make stuff that looks like stained glass and it looks interesting but doesn't use lead I think let's let's find my health and safety standards are pretty relaxed in my studio so the best way To be completely healthy was to eliminate it.
SPEAKER_02:So for your installation work, you are using lead?
SPEAKER_01:So the last one that I did, so if I do the Tiffany technique, the solder has lead in it still. And
SPEAKER_00:I
SPEAKER_01:have been experimenting with lead-free solder, but I just haven't had the time to really work out how to use that properly. But even that has like zinc instead of lead reinforcing in it. Okay.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But, yeah, so the fused ones that I put in architecture, they're fused with zinc channels as opposed to lead channels. Okay. But, yeah, there's been some times when I have, because I'm pretty, there's been some times where I've measured wrong and I've had to take the panel, like, back to the studio to resize it, whereas, like, lead you can just cut off on site. So, yeah, it has its problems using zinc. And
SPEAKER_02:also it just doesn't bend very well unless you have like a cane bender. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I have a cane bender that I had to get from America because you just couldn't buy it in Australia. But yeah, it's definitely the fact that it's not malleable makes it really difficult for sure.
SPEAKER_02:Your fused glass is, it's like nothing I've ever seen. There's one piece I'm thinking of that's like purple flowers and a bee. That's fused, right?
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure which one you're talking about specifically, but probably because I haven't used paint for a long time. So... If it's kind of new, it would be fused. Yeah, so it's like fritz. So using glass powder mainly with combination of cut out sheet glass as well.
SPEAKER_02:You have a way of outlining with your fused glass that I'm not really seeing people doing that I think is fused. I don't think it's painted with black.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes I fuse the color and then use black paint for the detail. Okay. So that could be what you're talking about. But, yeah, I find that with powders you can almost, it's almost like you're painting with the glass powders. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's more– I like using frits and powders because, yeah, it's more painterly than the Tiffany technique. And you can be a bit more, like, flowy. You can be a bit more like you're actually painting a picture rather than, like, etching out.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Where did you learn how to fuse glass?
SPEAKER_01:Just through heaps of experiments. I got a kiln off eBay for 50 cents. A big kiln? Yeah, a big kiln. It's like two metres by like one metre and it was 50 cents because we had to like de-install this person's garage. And, yeah, it's just heaps of experiments. Like there's like some YouTube tutorials on like the super basics. But, yeah, it's just having fun with it really.
SPEAKER_02:And how long, because you do have a signature style with your fusing, how long between when you got the kiln and when you felt like you found your signature style with your glass fusing?
SPEAKER_01:I still feel like I don't have it. But I mean, I think lockdown really helped in Australia because we were literally inside for two years. So there was a lot of, yeah, experiments going on. I don't think I have a signature style, but other people tell me I do so I guess I do but it's a really hard question to ask because I still feel like I'm trying to I mean to answer because I still feel like I'm trying to discover that
SPEAKER_02:always evolving yeah you have another you have a couple other fused pieces that I wanted to mention one is a a reinterpretation inspired by Victorian and Edwardian lead lights and And it's insane. It's insane. The detail that you got out of that fused glass is so beautiful. And then the other one is there's a migration of red crabs. And I just wrote down here, what is happening? Because what is happening? It's so good. It's really, really good. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:thank you. Yeah, it's just that's frits and powders. Both of those were only one firing. as well because that was sort of the aim of um yeah because Tiffany technique obviously takes a really long time and so I was trying to work out how to make things look good but didn't take heaps of time to do that was sort of like one of the aims of the game and so yeah that's like one firing and so sometimes it doesn't work out but sometimes it's like oh it's
SPEAKER_02:pretty
SPEAKER_01:good
SPEAKER_02:yeah you you hit the mark with that the aims of the game it all worked out You did a show recently called Another Green World. How did you come up with that name? Is everything pretty nature inspired with that show? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:um it was definitely yeah nature inspired but that's a Brian Eno album um and I was listening to that album a lot um and it was like a transitory like it was a transition album for him and also just the vibe of the album was what I wanted to achieve and I don't think it's kind of what I what I want to achieve in my whole career so I don't think I achieved it with that exhibition but I think I'll get there hopefully
SPEAKER_02:there was another post you made I want Yeah. Yeah, that one was really cool. It says, The paint from the whitewashing done during the war was scraped off bit by bit by the two women, revealing the original Art Nouveau detail underneath. The owners are from India, so take great pride in the Indian influences of Art Nouveau. The house was not confirmed to be a Victor Horta until they started the restoration, and now all furniture and fittings throughout are from the original house, all designed from the house of Horta, with the house being the only Horta in the city center not demolished. While Art Nouveau lacked the social ambition of its arts and crafts predecessor, the ambition of beauty and craftsmanship in what was an increasingly mass produced consumer culture is something to be admired. I had a couple of questions about this and I figured you might know the answer since you talked to the woman who owned the home. Do you know what strict government regulations they had to comply with?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay. So specifically for that house, they weren't allowed to use chemicals on the paint, so they couldn't strip the white paint off. So that's why they had to scrape it off. And they weren't told by the government what they had to do. It was always like retrospective. So they would do like a small section and then people from the regulation body would come and make sure that they're doing it alright. But thankfully those two women had a super high standard and they loved the house more than anybody so they weren't going to do anything that was going to potentially ruin it. So also all the furniture because they have sourced all that furniture, all All of the finishings and the furnishings or all the furniture is from the original house. So a lot of it was stored just somewhere else, but they've also just found all this furniture. So that wasn't even something that was regulated by the government. They've just gone above and beyond to do that. I wrote that
SPEAKER_02:down because I couldn't understand how they found all the furniture from the original house.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, just like I don't know either. But it's an absolute passion project for them. Yeah, I went and saw, because I was in Brussels to see Art Nouveau
SPEAKER_02:buildings. And why was the whitewashing done? Was that just a decor choice?
SPEAKER_01:I think it was during the war. And so an Art Nouveau, because it's quite an extravagant design style, it kind of went out of fashion pretty quickly during modernism. Yeah, they just, yeah, whitewashed it during the war. And also because Art Nouveau, like, so Arts and Crafts was about making art for everybody. But Art Nouveau was definitely making art for rich people. And so it probably went out of favour pretty quickly.
SPEAKER_02:This post really got me. Like, I really, I had lots of
SPEAKER_01:questions about it. I wanted to learn more. Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. I'm going back to Brussels at the end of this to trip so maybe i should go back and ask him some second round of questions
SPEAKER_02:yes yes i'll send you a list now tom is that where you learned how to do stained glass was when you worked for that studio
SPEAKER_03:yeah uh when i i worked there for seven years so i i had a lot of experience uh with stained glass panels it was more in that studio it was sometimes more of a repair approach rather than and follow the basic ideas of conservation. It was easy for me to implement the literature into my practical work, but I really started doing it with a contemporary approach when I started my studio.
SPEAKER_02:What did you do before that?
SPEAKER_03:I went to a school for glass art for two years. And before that, actually, studied social work. So I always painted and drew a lot since forever, basically. But I never really thought about doing a job in that direction because I never thought it would be possible to make a living out of something artistic. And that's why I studied social work. Also, of course, because I was interested in it. But After that, I had the urge to do some sort of artistic education. And so I went to this school for glass art. I didn't work with glass before that. It was more like a pragmatic choice because this school is quite close to my hometown. And I thought about studying art after that, but I wanted to first do these two years to to see if i am going to like it and so yeah actually i liked it a lot and i i started working with glass a lot and after that i got this job in this uh company for stained glass where i also had space for for my own projects and they allowed me to to use the workshops And so, yeah, I started to work a lot with glass, actually.
SPEAKER_02:Are your parents artistic?
SPEAKER_03:That's what I did before that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Sorry, it was a long answer for sure.
SPEAKER_02:No, not at all. No, it was perfect. Do you come from an artistic family?
SPEAKER_03:No, not at all. Maybe that's the reason why I didn't go for that artistic path right away. So my, my actually, no, we don't have, I don't have any artists in my closer family.
SPEAKER_02:What did your mom and dad do?
SPEAKER_03:They're doctors, actually. Like, they're retired now, but they're... My dad is a psychiatrist, and my mom worked in palliative medicine.
SPEAKER_02:And what is your hometown? You don't have a bio online, so I have to... Oh, no, I
SPEAKER_03:have a bio on my website, I think.
SPEAKER_02:I missed it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Like, there's a CV in the menu, but I don't know, whatever. It's not a very long bio, so... Sorry, what was your question? I
SPEAKER_02:don't know. What do you want to tell me?
SPEAKER_03:My hometown is Innsbruck in Austria. It's in the western part of Austria and it's basically in the mountains. It's a small city, so Innsbruck just has like 120,000 inhabitants. It's It's basically a city that is best known for alpine sports, so for skiing and climbing, mountain biking, hiking. And so it's not particularly a city that is known for art, for instance. But well, luckily, it's also a student city. There's universities. So they're also culturally like for the size of the city there's quite a lot happening I think but on the other side it's also always like a smaller scene so yeah yeah I'm still there but I think that's also a reason why I was always present in the online more online than in local galleries for instance because I always like I exhibited a lot in galleries in local galleries but it was never something like... I always had the feeling like doing stuff online opens a window to a broader audience instead of like showing stuff to always the same five people in Innsbruck. Well, that's a bit mean, but I think you get the idea.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But on the other side, you have a problem online that is that you don't can expose originals. So, of course, it's much more like direct. You get more direct connection to our pieces when you see them originally and not on a screen in your Instagram feed. So that's of course a big disadvantage of exposing stuff online.
SPEAKER_01:all over the world, sort of, a little
SPEAKER_03:bit. You mean like the artworks? Yeah. Well, I do a lot of different stuff, but I think my main works are the anamorphic cubes. So I do these cubes with glass strips with different fragmented images. And basically, when I had the idea for the first cube, this actually changed a lot in my artistic practice like how I practice as an artist because like up to that point I never saw myself like I always did art more for myself or like I never really knew what to do with it I was just like highly motivated to draw and paint but I think the anamorphic cubes changed something because well I somehow I reached quite a big audience and like a lot of people saw the video and then I sold the cube to the US and well this kind of showed me that it's also possible to yeah do this more seriously like do art more seriously and have a certain perspective with it and I think this was quite important and yeah since then I keep going and I start bigger and bigger projects and sometimes I question like I tend to start huge projects and in the middle of the process I'm like why am I doing this and but I never regret it like starting project in the end after I finish it. So
SPEAKER_02:yeah. Yeah. I want to talk more about those anamorphic sculptures. I read in 2014 and 2015, I have created two anamorphic sculptures named Emulsifier and Emergence Lab. These two projects received lots of attention on the web and totally changed my self-concept as an artist. After doing a big anamorphic commission for the Expo 2020 in Dubai and another anamorphic collaboration in my hometown, but especially after I am now focusing on anamorphic cubes again and the process already started. So they're gorgeous and ethereal and honestly beautiful. When I look at the videos of them, they seem like something that could only be generated in a computer program, not something you could actually translate into an object, especially with glass paint. Your mind is real special, to put it very simply. It's so impressive. Yeah. that you figured out how to make these. So the way it works is it's a cube. So I'm talking first, not necessarily about the ones that are like encased, but the ones that are sort of out. So the emulsifier and head instructor, when the piece is rotated, four hidden images appear every 90 degrees. So every face that you stand on, you can see a different picture. The glass strips are stuck into a wood base and with laser cut slits. The images were painted with the same colors used for traditional stained glass windows. All fragments of the images were painted separately on the strips. When you see the strips kind of in between, just looking directly at them, it almost looks like confetti. Like it doesn't look like it makes any sense at all. And then as you move around a piece, you know, the image takes, takes form. Was this based on something that you saw or how did you, How did this idea start?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was always fascinated by optical illusions, I think. And also, I think a big topic for me was this combination of art and science, maybe. For me, this was also, for a long time, these two worlds were like a contradiction. And I think the anamorphic cubes, I kind of managed to combine these two worlds It was also a process I had to go through personally, I think, in a way. I don't know. Maybe that's not so important anymore. But it was also the end project of the final project in the glass art school. Basically, I did something similar there, but I chose a completely different construction. It was like I glued stainless steel glass pieces onto wires that were in a base and you saw like four different like face like abstract portraits from each side so this was basically the start and at some point I had this idea to switch to glass strips and and paint the fragments onto the glass strips and yeah I just like it kind of evolved from one project to the next. And really, I don't know, it was an idea, like it just popped up in my head and I was like, okay, maybe this could work. And then I started like playing around or finding a solution, how I could make this possible. And yeah, in the end it worked like, because also it happens the other way around also quite often that I have an idea and I start working on it. And in the end I'm like, okay, no, it's just not possible to bring this into the physical world. Like with, I don't know. for whatever reasons so but yeah the anamorphic cubes they worked out and yeah I think it's just like it's a lot of planning of course like I'm it doesn't work to just start intuitively like you kind of create this intuitively I think it's basically a planning process Do
SPEAKER_02:you use a computer program? Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:I wanted to say about this. Yeah, I am using a computer program, but actually it would work it would be possible to plan it on a piece of paper. So because it's basically two-dimensional in a way, I just shift layers in space. And also you have two individual games. So the two images that are on the opposite of each other, they have to fill the exact same space so that when you look at one, the other one is exactly hidden behind it. And the other two images, you would look on the rear sides of the strips. So those are also hidden.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:So basically, you have these two individual games in a way. And yeah, so it would work to just draw this on paper. It's a lot easier on the computer because I have to plan the fragmentation So I have to plan which fragment goes on what glass strip in advance. And of course, this is easier to do in digital programs to change stuff and so on. But it would be possible to do it without a computer.
SPEAKER_02:And now tell me how you decide what you choose to paint. One is fish, one is heads, one is mushrooms. How do you choose what you want to use?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think I, well, I always liked drawing fish for, actually this reason, this goes back to, I don't know, like my early stage of drawing maybe. Like I always liked the idea that fish are also flying like birds, but just in a different medium. And so I was always questioning like, why are birds a symbol for freedom? Like fish could be, are actually the same so I like to turn that around and I think this is why I do a lot of fish and birds and I played with this like yeah being in different worlds and being free in the one world but not being able to move in the other maybe so it's about limitations and freedom and so on so this is where this whole fish thing comes from and there are like in the anamorphic cubes there are also quite pragmatic reasons because like my fish they always changed into like they get longer until they were eels because you can shape eels quite freely also and since like quite often I have these image pairs that fill the same space and on one side there's the eel and on the other side there's something else like a person and yeah you can shape the eel in a certain way so this works kind of yeah works better than other images also like I was always fascinated by animals by the natural world maybe but I was also like for me this was always interesting topic like are humans animals and what is in what way are we not animals and yeah like are we cultural beings or biological beings and like all of these questions maybe play a role and that's why I find it interesting to work with these images but well one more thing about the choice of the images I'm working on a huge anamorphic project since forever and it will be a cube that will be placed in public space in Innsbruck and it will be showing four images and this is a kingfisher lynx it's a fish I don't know the word in English and it's a bee and in this cube I'm using these four images because they are like either endangered species or they are related to the biodiversity crisis or to the destruction of their environment. And so in this project particularly, I had the idea that actually the anamorphic cubes work really well for this topic, like biodiversity crisis, because depending on your perspective, the animals either fall apart or reassemble. And so I found this really, like this works really well for this topic. So, but actually this is the first time I really, I think I have a anamorphic cube with a very strong, like theoretical background if you want, or with a clear topic. And usually I think they're more like freely associated images. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's a really good answer. Good job. The new reiteration of these cubes. So the first two I was talking about, or sorry, I think maybe the first two or three that I was talking about, they are not encased in this silicone oil that has the same refractive index as acrylic. The new ones are actually like a cube that you can pick up, whereas the other ones were like, you could touch the glass.
UNKNOWN:No.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so, well, after the emulsifier, which was the first animal cube with glass strips, I had this crazy idea that it has to be possible, like a cube has six sides and I just did four images and I thought like, yeah, there has to be a way to also use the bottom and the top layer as four images. So my idea was to create an emulsifier anamorphic cube with six images which was a quite complicated idea actually and I just did this one time it was the emergence lab and it doesn't include glass because it well it might work with glass too but I I chose uh like acrylic laser cut acrylic strips that would be like it's a you can build up the structure and it was painted with acrylic and this whole structure to make it invisible floated in in this uh silicone oil that had the same refractive index as the acrylic to make it because then the light would just pass through without being uh refracted in any way And yeah, this project, basically, well, it's kind of a sad story. So I did the video. And it was a real success. And I sold the sculpture. And when I wanted to send it, I saw that the acrylic color comes off and I tested actually the oil quite a long time with the acrylic to find out if it would like do something bad to the acrylic and when I tested it it didn't but I didn't realize like it was a super specialized oil it was super hard to find that and the oil had like an expiration date and like I never thought that oil would have an expiration date so after that date like I don't know the oil changed the chemical situation was changed and it started damaging the acrylic so I couldn't sell it and I my idea was then to do it with resin instead of the oil which was actually a lot made a lot more sense because doing sculptures with liquids is just like it's really not a good idea I think you just produce a lot of problems because liquid also expands when it gets hot and like it can leak like it can if it's not it can leak and yeah so but I didn't have any experience with resin so I repainted the complete sculpture which is a hell of a lot of work and I sent it to a company that works with resin and they said yeah we can do it but we we don't want to we don't want to be responsible if anything happens but uh but it will work and in the end they completely messed
SPEAKER_01:it up oh
SPEAKER_00:no
SPEAKER_03:they destroyed like it was completely filled with bubbles and i think this is like seven it's 20 2015 so it's some years ago i i really was like when i see this story now i think i had like i had so much less experience than now. I would do this completely differently. But yeah, anyway... I came up with an idea to create these cubes with the six images. But actually, to be honest, I think it's just not necessary to do that because it's extremely complicated. And yeah, you cannot really expose them better than the ones with the four images because you have to turn them to see the other two images. So whatever. I think it's good I did this one piece. to show that it's possible, but I don't see a point to do it more often. And so that's why now I stick to this construction with the glass strips and with the four images. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Well, thank goodness you got like a video of it before the oil. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh. But how hard was it? So in the end,
SPEAKER_03:it was like a lot happened. A lot happened through that project. I got this commission for the expo in Dubai, for instance. They saw the video and they contacted me based on this video. And also, it was totally worth it. But yeah, it was also not only a successful story, I'd say. It was a temporary and ephemeral project, if you
SPEAKER_02:want
SPEAKER_03:to say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. made in Dubai was a collaboration with an artist name you say his name because I don't want to butcher it
SPEAKER_03:the one in Dubai
SPEAKER_02:Tyroler Tyroler
SPEAKER_03:no it wasn't a collaboration back in that time I was still hired in that company I told you before that is called Tyroler Glasmalerei it's a company's name so Glasmalerei glass painting and Tirola is the region where I live and this is the name of the company and I realized the project there because I didn't have a workshop back then like I didn't have my own workshop and so that's why yeah it was realized there and yeah but it wasn't really a collaboration it was basically my project
SPEAKER_02:and it's still there it's at a metro station and And goodbye.
SPEAKER_03:yeah it was in the end they so it was originally it was made for the groundbreaking of this metro station but this was a groundbreaking event and it was so the metro station obviously wasn't there at the groundbreaking so they had this event and the idea was to then move it to the train station in the end I should update that on my website in the end it's in the headquarters of the RTA which is the the transportation Ministry of Dubai something like this so yeah they didn't move it to the to the train station unfortunately but yeah
SPEAKER_02:still pretty cool
SPEAKER_03:yeah yeah it's great it's great this happened I really like because I like I get asked to do commissions like this quite often and like sometimes the schedules are just impossible unfortunately so they come up they contact me like if I can do this in three weeks which is just not possible and also like there are different reasons why sometimes it doesn't work out in the end and like working with logos I think is very commercial of course in a way and of course it's based on a sculpture I made but in the end if there's a logo okay then it's more it's not an artwork in that sense it's more like or the meaning of the artwork is the company that it's made for but I think in case of the expo piece since the the expo logo is uh is very ornamental and also very detailed uh i think it's it it works really well actually in that case yeah
SPEAKER_02:i loved it i didn't even know it was our logo to be honest with you when i watched it and then i read afterwards that it was a logo because it is a very it kind of looks like a mandala like it's very
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:it's very pretty
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_02:There's two other pieces I wanted to ask you about that really caught my eye. One is called Intersella. And it says, in the multimedia installation of a traditionally manufactured hanging stained glass pane is used as a screen for rear projection mapping, thereby the densely painted and abstract depiction of a cell that is shown by the stained glass pieces blends with digital animations. The sculpture was created in search of direct ways to convey a subjective perspective. on intense mental and physical experiences to the viewer and with the intent to contemporarily reinterpret a craft that goes back to medieval times. The circular metal frame has a diameter of 1.5 meters, which is just shy of 5 feet, and sandwiches the stained glass piece in between two safety glass panels. On the rear pane, a so-called transparent holographic projection film is mounted to preserve the translucent character of the sculpture, while at the same time making it suitable for projections. In order to evenly distribute light on the disc, two projectors have been set up sidewards behind the sculpture. The image, the stained glass panel itself is pulsing with colors and it's shifting. And it really does look like something out of a sci-fi movie that's living and breathing. It feels more obvious to me why you would want to light it the way you did to get that effect. But can you share with me why you chose a depiction of a cell?
SPEAKER_03:Well, I think the reason I chose a cell was that it's like the smallest entity of a living being. And so I, like, I don't know, I... Like many years ago, I had like experiences in when, I don't know, when I went hiking or when I danced at concerts or like intense, maybe ecstatic experiences during whatever, like musical, music, concerts, hiking, running, whatever, sports and, or yoga also. So, and in that, period I found that quite like important for I don't know like it changed the energy for my daily life also in a way. And so this was kind of a approach to try to create an artwork that creates a lot of centered intensity. And so I think this is why the cell worked well because it also has this kind of Yeah, it's like a very singular entity. And yeah, I think this is why I chose
SPEAKER_02:this. Sort of like all of that distilled down to the smallest detail.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But at the same time, make it huge for like 1.5 meters. It's like there's no cell in that scale.
SPEAKER_02:No, just yours. There is, but it's stained glass. Yeah. And then the last piece I wanted to ask you about is very different from that. It's the smallest living cell all the way up into this like massive mirrored, what's called ebony.
SPEAKER_03:Is
SPEAKER_02:that how you say it? Is it ebb or ebbe?
SPEAKER_03:It's ebbe, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. It's a site-specific installation for a decommissioned hydroelectric power plant in Innsbruck, which was in operation from 1907 to 2004, which is a really long time, by the way. The project makes energy generation visible and thus aims to raise awareness of issues such as energy scarcity and water ecology. As a largely CO2-neutral form of energy production hydropower is an indispensable energy source in times of climate change nevertheless hydropower is criticized primarily because of its serious impact on the ecology of landscape the regulation of rivers in their construction with power plants has caused great damage to the biodiversity of water bodies The power plant with its impressive turbine hall is a listed building. Since the space was to be made accessible to the public, it was important to develop a project that would emphasize the historical dimension of the building and at the same time have a strong independent quality. The majority of the turbine-shaped installation consists of mirrors, which serve two purposes. Mirrors do not have an independent surface, but take on the appearance of their surroundings. Thus, the material contributes to the site-specific character of the installation. At night, moreover, the mirrors distribute water-like reflections throughout the hall. The vivid light is created by a rotating geometric glass element made of float glass and blue hand-blown glass, which hangs in the center of the installation and is illuminated by six LED bars. The diameter of the installation is approximately 2.5 meters, which for my American listeners is 8.2 feet. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_03:um no it was it was listed in the sense that it was uh like listed as a cultural heritage so it wasn't um yeah maybe maybe i didn't translate that well in description but um so the thing is that uh the the building like it's decommissioned but also you cannot just uh remove the building and put something else there because it's it's protected so um yeah in a way like the the owner of the building he wanted to use the space for in a more cultural artistic way but without or it's not even possible to use this space without picking up the original intention of the place so if you make an art installation in there you have to deal with huge turbines that are like very present so you couldn't It's completely different than a white cube gallery. That's what I'm trying to say. So it was quite important to not go into a conflict with the space, but more use the space. So this is why mirrors were the best material, I think, to do that. Yeah, and that's also why it's turbine-shaped. So I really tried to, in a way, redefine the space into an artistic space, but at the same time use the topic of the building.
SPEAKER_02:The mirrors are great for that, because you can also obviously see the colors of the room. It's very industrial. There's pipes, and there's brick, and it's a lot of machinery around it. Did you assemble it only there? Did you make all the pieces and then bring them there to assemble it? Or do you assemble it together in your studio and then somehow transport it?
SPEAKER_03:No, that's not possible, unfortunately. So the mirror part, this outer ring, the biggest part of the piece consists of 12 individual elements and they are like intersecting a bit. So you don't really see that they are individual pieces when you look at the finished piece. But yeah, it cannot be transported in one piece. especially because it was made to be hung from the ceiling. But I had to move the piece now to another place and there was impossible to hang it. So I changed a bit the construction and now it's standing on there. So first it was hanging from a metal ring that was made especially for the piece. And now the 12 elements are standing on that steel ring and it's not hanging anymore. But still, I really wouldn't want to transport it in that state. so I made like I made two boxes I just have two boxes and I don't manage to put more than two pieces in my car at one time so this exhibition is really close to my studio so I have to drive like seven times to move the whole piece and yeah it would be really hard to exhibit it somewhere else
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_03:definitely Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Did you have, did you, um, all the, it says there was blue hand blown glass in the center of it. Did you do that yourself?
SPEAKER_03:The hand blowing? No, no, no. That's like I most of the time use Lambert's hand blown glass. And no, I don't do that myself. No, I don't have the skills nor the possibility to
SPEAKER_02:do that. And before you made this piece, did you have any knowledge of how a turbine worked? Or was that all things that you researched and put together after you knew you were going to make it there?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I, I, I didn't have actually like, it was kind of a new topic. So water energy is, uh, quite a big issue in the, in the region where I live because we have mountains. So, uh, and we have snow on the mountain. So there are big rivers. And so a lot of power is generated with, um, uh, water power plants. Uh, so it's also, it has this political dimension and it's always like I wrote in the text also that you have these ecological issues but also these big advantages in terms of CO2 neutrality and so I knew that part of the topic because it was familiar from the media to me but like I never questioned how a turbine would work so but I like the idea to use the term and work with light to... Yeah, to kind of pick up these topics of water and energy and turbine.
SPEAKER_02:It's absolutely gorgeous. It's so cool. I've never seen anything like that before, ever, ever, ever. It's amazing. Okay, guys, I'm going to ask you your final three questions. And Nadine, you answer the first one first. Who are your favorite artists outside of glass?
SPEAKER_01:Um... Well, yeah, I was going to say, because we're in Austria, so Schiele. Oh, yeah. How do you pronounce it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Schiele.
SPEAKER_01:Schiele. Schiele. Yeah. Yeah, and then, you know, the Vienna Succession artists, the decorative artists that are part of, like, arts and crafts and art niveau, that's all really inspiring. Yeah, I don't know, so many different, I like craft-based art, so people that are just experimenting with their art forms. But I like MC,
SPEAKER_02:I should not
SPEAKER_01:say.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Tom, who are your favorite artists?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, it's really a difficult question because there are lots of artists and I also like a lot of art outside my artistic field. I'm not just into glass art, of course. And well, I think I was very interested in street art and graffiti for a long time and also public art and political art, obviously. I think what was really an early influence and also in regard of the optical illusion topic and also the maybe scientific topic was MC Escher so yeah that's the name I'm going to say but well I really don't want to reduce it to just one name so yeah it's kind of a I thought about before saying anything I was thinking about not saying a name Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:it's a really hard question because it's something that seems so obvious. But then when you try to just pick three or something, it's really hard to... um yeah to steal it down to
SPEAKER_02:that it really is it's more about just um people who are listening to the podcast that just like want to know you better and want to know what you're interested in outside of the art that you make it's just like give somebody a little thread of something else to check out you know because then i put links to all the artists in the show notes so then they can be like oh i love tom's work what's he into what's he like and you know obviously like i recently did an interview where i i was asked the same question and i like hate my answers already and I just gave that interview you know what I mean like it's so it really is so hard to pick just a couple artists but it's just more about like yeah just like giving a nod to somebody that you just want to pass on
SPEAKER_01:yeah okay well I do have there is someone that I really like who's like a contemporary he's a street artist actually as well Saina how do you spell it do you know he's from like
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah yeah I know the words um it's
SPEAKER_01:like s-a-i-n-e-r and then I think they have like a little crew and they're all really amazing street artists that do huge scale stuff yeah so he's really good there's a
SPEAKER_03:street artist I really like his ROA it's basically the huge murals that show dead black just black painted dead animals
SPEAKER_00:yeah
SPEAKER_03:yeah and And I really like there's a sketchbook artist because I was into sketchbook drawing when I lived in Berlin and like Pat Perry was also I think quite a big influence for some time and he also does murals. Is
SPEAKER_01:he from Detroit? Is he American?
SPEAKER_03:Might be. I'm not 100% sure. He travels a lot so he's...
SPEAKER_01:like a pat from detroit that does sketchbook stuff and and
SPEAKER_00:murals okay
SPEAKER_01:and he's really good too uh maybe it's the same pat there um There's really good Melbourne artists who are my friends. Yeah. So there's Goody, George Goodnow in Melbourne. I really like their stuff. Haha is a street artist. I used to have a studio with these guys and so they were a big inspiration for me. Yeah. James Wilson is an amazing oil painter. And he also really likes chalet. And so you can see that inspiration, which is pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Those are great. Those are great answers.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Now who are your favorite glass artists? And they can be contemporary. They can be, they can be dead. They can be anybody who you just want to share with the listeners. Someone, yeah, they should check out.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe, well, I think there are two that come to my mind first and they are quite different. One is Judith Schlechter. And I think she just does, like she developed this crazy technique, this crazy stained glass technique with flash glass. And I just think she's such a great person and she has such a great approach towards art. art so yeah I'm a fan of her and the other one is Olafur Eliasson yeah it's well he's interesting because he also has this scientific issue but also a strong experience and science is often combined in his work and that's kind of a topic i find interesting and also the works are like just uh insane sometimes and yeah these two
SPEAKER_01:does he do the it's like light art as well is
SPEAKER_03:it
SPEAKER_01:Allison or something. How do you?
SPEAKER_03:Eliasson, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. He's really good
SPEAKER_03:actually. Yeah, he does a lot. Like light is like basically probably one of the biggest issues in his art.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. There's like a Netflix documentary about him.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I don't know. He's
SPEAKER_01:got an episode. My favorite glass artist. So David Wright, probably the biggest stained glass artist in Australia. And he was doing really experimental stuff. perform most other people were with like fused glass and stuff um so i really like him and he's also a really awesome person who's really supportive of the other people in the industry um there's lots of melbourne people because of the new glass course from glass ink badass stained glass um stay glassy a good jordan makes really cool like graffiti related stuff
SPEAKER_02:that's the one that makes the really uh street art one or did you say one after that
SPEAKER_01:no Jordan Jordan I can't remember what his Instagram thing is but it's his name's Jordan okay and like Poppy um Templeton makes cool mirrors and then the final question
SPEAKER_02:is what are Nadine we'll start with you what are your five to ten year goals
SPEAKER_01:So I want to keep experimenting still. I want to do small-scale stuff, get really good at small-scale stuff and make really intricate pieces that take a lot of time. And then I also want to do, I mean, obviously I want to do more architectural stuff, but I want to make, I want to still work on discovery, like making a sort of stained glass Australian language that works well with contemporary architecture. So do more. you know, more pattern stuff, think about space more and then just do commission work as well. So just do what people tell me to do.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. But that stays in your lane, you know, the work that's yours. Yeah. Yeah. What are your five to 10 year goals?
SPEAKER_03:Well, it's like, I don't have like super specific goals where I want to be, but I know that right now I want to actually pretty much keep doing what I'm doing. what I'm doing right now. So like do conservation, but also put a lot of time into my own art project. I have a lot of ideas I still want to realize and new ideas occur from time to time. So yeah, I think I like, I find public art really interesting because I think it's a great way to make art very accessible, but also public art kind of requires to work in a bigger scale, which is difficult, of course, but also interesting. And yeah, I think this is the direction that I'm going right now. And yeah, I'll do that until I don't like to do it anymore, which might be in 10 years or maybe Never.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. I also want to do public art. Yeah. Yeah. Because I also think making art for everybody, not just rich people, is a good
SPEAKER_02:thing. I agree. I agree. I 100% agree. Well, I really love the way that both of your brains work. I love that you're both exploring and trying new things and just being the tip of the spear in terms of like new styles and new thought processes. So thank you for what you're doing for the Glass community. And I really appreciate you sharing your evening with me as well.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thank you. Well, it's quite late there now. So I don't think I can say to you, have a wonderful and productive day in the studio but tomorrow if you find yourself back in the studio have a wonderful and productive day in the studio and I'll talk to you guys soon thank
SPEAKER_01:you
SPEAKER_03:thanks
SPEAKER_02:yeah see ya
SPEAKER_03:bye
SPEAKER_02:bye to see more of Nadine's work her Instagram is at Nadine Keegan N-A-D-I-N-E K-E-E-G-A-N and to see more of Tom's his is at Tom Medicus but he's He takes out one of the M's. So it's T-O-M-E-D-I-C-U-S. And that's all for today, folks. For next week's episode of Cracked, I'll be chatting with Jax Partlow. And she's this season's closer. Yep. Next week's episode is the final episode of season three. And you're not going to want to miss it. It's a really fun chat. And she's amazing. Till then. Bye.