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
Unified Design In Mind with Jack Brindley of Pavilion Pavilion
Hi everyone and welcome back to Cracked with Chevonne Ariss!
Today on episode 44 I'm joined by Edinburgh artist Jack Brindley. Under the alias Pavilion Pavilion, Jack has been exploring the relationship between contemporary art and objects of use, combining his research as an artist and his interest in design and architecture. Each work is a unique and individually commissioned piece, looking at forms found in minimalism and ‘painterly hard line abstraction’. The aim is to create works that are contemporary whilst adhering to the traditional methods and materials. How should Contemporary Stained Glass sit between an artwork and an architectural embellishment?
Stained Glass by Pavilion Pavilion is influenced by moments such as the groundbreaking Bauhaus School, where Design, Architecture, Craft and Art were all at the forefront of innovation. Today we discuss his idea art as a place holder, finding focus in his craft, enhancing what is already present and how maybe having all the glass tools and resources at your fingertips may not be the best thing after all. Let's get into it...
Join me as I crack it all wide open!
To see more of Jack's work, his instagram is @pavilionpavilion_ and his website is pavilionpavilion.com.
For the Cracked Patreon page Jack is gifting an original drawing that’s called “Grid Study” made in 2022, and it’s charcoal and ink on paper. It's 42 x 30 cm or 16.5" x 11.8”. I’ll be doing a drawing for that 12 days after the release of this episode.
Honorable mentions from this episode:
Bauhaus
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus
Bridget Riley
bridgetrileyservices.com
Sarah Morris
sarahmorris.com
Bendheim
bendheim.com
Monarch Glass
monarchglassstudio.com/sheet-glass
Fremont Antique Glass
fremontantiqueglass.com/collections/transparent
Favorite glass artist:
Jochem Poensgsen
jochempoensgen.de
Other:
Robert Irwin
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Irwin_
The Professional Trade Association for Architectural Art Glass
Bullseye Glass
~ handcast glass since 1974 ~
Canfield Technologies
Canfield sets the standard for the Stained Glass industry.
Youghiogheny Glass Company
Stained glass sheets and glass products for the art and stained glass industry.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Hello friends and welcome back to Cracked with Siobhan Aris. I'm Siobhan and I'm so happy you're here with us today. Before we jump in, I need to thank this episode's sponsors. First up is the Stained Glass Association of America. Members of the SGAA are a passionate community who believe in openly exchanging ideas and knowledge among beginning and experienced practitioners alike. Find out more and sign up to become a member today at Stained Glass Association of America. I'd also like to thank Canfield Technologies. I've always said their 6040 solder is my absolute favorite, but now they've expanded and improved their flux line too. Find out which one is right for you at canfieldmetals.com. I'd also like to express my gratitude for Yakagini Glass. Yakagini has been producing the world's finest art glass since 1976. With their 2017 entry into the 96th fusible market, I'd also like to say hello and thank you to Bullseye Glass. Did you know you can take classes at Bullseye? They have five resource centers in the U.S. for in-person learning. They have two in California, one in the Bay Area, one in L.A., New York, which is actually in Mamaroneck, Portland, Oregon, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. If you live near one of these, run. Don't walk to sign up for an in-person class. I took a fusing class actually at the Portland location a couple years ago and it was so much fun. If you don't live near a resource center or if you're international, no problem. They have tons of online classes to choose from as well. Check them out and sign up at bullseyeglass.com. Today on Cracked, I'm joined by Edinburgh artist Jack Brindley. Under the alias Pavilion Pavilion, Jack has been exploring the relationship between contemporary art and objects of use, combining his research as an artist and his interest in design and architecture. Each work is a unique and individually commissioned piece, looking at forms found in minimal and painterly hardline abstraction. The aim is to create works that are contemporary while adhering to the traditional methods and materials. Stained Glass by Pavilion Pavilion is influenced by moments such as groundbreaking Bauhaus School, where design, architecture, craft, and art were all at the forefront of innovation. Today, we discuss his idea of art as a placeholder, finding focus in his craft, enhancing what is already present, and how maybe having all the Hi there. Hi, Jack Brindley.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_03:I'm well, thank you. How are you doing? Good to see you.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you too. Yeah. Well, thanks for organizing everything and inviting me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, thank you so much for saying yes. I appreciate it. Are you in Glasgow?
SPEAKER_00:I'm in Edinburgh.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Is your studio
SPEAKER_03:in Glasgow?
SPEAKER_00:I used to live in Glasgow about two years ago and moved through to Edinburgh and And now I'm basically here. So yeah, kind of, well, I'm based in Edinburgh now, but used to be in Glasgow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. And so how long have you been doing Staying Glass? Wait, actually, no, I'm not going to jump into that yet. First, I want to hear more about you. So are you from Glasgow originally?
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm from London originally. And we moved up to Glasgow, I don't know, eight or so years ago. and then made the move over to Edinburgh two years ago.
SPEAKER_03:Who is we? Me
SPEAKER_00:and my wife, and now son. We have a two-year-old, almost two-year-old, currently running around like a mad person downstairs. So if there's noise during the interview, I apologize in advance.
SPEAKER_03:No worries at all, and congratulations. It's a little late. Two years late, but congratulations.
SPEAKER_00:Still counts. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Born and raised in London. Were you from the city, like London proper? Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. So, North West London Zone 2, if that means anything to you, which is basically like... The underground network, the tube, is done in zones, one outwards. So yeah, fairly central. I grew up there. My parents weren't from London, but they choose to move there in their 20s. So yeah, spent most of my life there. And then, yeah, I guess kind of... Wanted to check out somewhere new. I mean, London, like a lot of big capital cities, is undergoing so much change. It's kind of unrecognizable, I think, to the city I grew up in. So felt like it was time to move on when we did.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that you lived in London or that you lived in England and then you moved to Scotland because I think you've had a unique experience of sort of experiencing Brexit from having been in England and then also from now you're on the other side of it, like you're now in Scotland.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you think
SPEAKER_03:about that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah I mean I guess like the politics between Scotland and England are widely quite different you know Scotland's a very socialist leaning country it's quite a conservative party currently in power there is a devolved government but basically Westminster which is like the seat of power in the UK in England has a lot of political sway over Scotland and And something like Brexit was a huge rift. Essentially, nobody in Scotland voted for Brexit. Actually, nobody in London voted for Brexit either. That's the weird thing. You find these cities that have generally quite open-minded, cosmopolitan views and people who live maybe more rurally. I don't know. There's a very distinct divide between how people vote and where they live. Traditionally, London is quite a Labour-based place. So Labour is the left-leaning party, although they're pretty centre at the moment. However, in Scotland, everyone basically votes for the Scottish Nationalist Party, which sounds... Nationalism, I feel like, needs a bit of context with Scotland, but I think it's not as right-wing imposed. It's quite like a socialist-based party. But anyway, I think it's given more kind of ammunition for Scotland to become independent, basically, the Brexit situation.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for that.
SPEAKER_00:It's always
SPEAKER_03:good to hear a little snippet here and there of what people are feeling and thinking. And again, you're in such a unique situation because you were there and now you're here.
SPEAKER_00:yeah and you know like it's it's like many things in life you live in this echo chamber where you surround yourself with quite similar opinions and when you see these boats get past it's almost unbelievable to think that there's so much of a population that has completely different views to yourself um Worrying, I'd say, from my perspective. I think that if the vote was to happen again, it would be in favour to remain part of the EU. I think everyone's, for whatever reasons, decided to vote for Brexit, maybe realised that it was not the thing that they were expecting or promised.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it seems to have kind of gone down in history as one of those... world events where I think the next day wasn't Brexit. What is Brexit? The most Googled thing. But yeah, there was a lot of press around that part of it specifically that people were like, I didn't know what I was voting for. I didn't know that's what it was.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. It's astonishing. And there's lots of people who voted for it who also have second homes in places like France and Spain and are now angry that they can't visit their second homes in the same way and you just think what it's amazing how little thought has actually gone into people voting on something that's so significant um i mean i suppose in people's defense there was a lot of promises that weren't kept by politicians no accountability like money that would be spent on things like the national health service which just never materialized um And a lot of misinformation about how the European Union actually spends money, like obviously pay to participate in it as a community, but you receive a huge amount of funding back and all that funding is directed into pathways that the government is quite poor at doing. So building infrastructure and disadvantaged communities and stuff like that, like a lot of those big projects like building bridges or town halls, money came from the European Union. It's a bit of a... Yeah. It's just unfortunate that it affects some disadvantaged people the most and a lot of these communities happen to vote for Brexit. So it's... I don't know. It's a shit show, basically.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And it's still unfolding.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, I... Yeah. Yeah, I don't think there's any kind of positive opinion on it. At least, I mean, I've come across.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, well, I didn't mean to bring it down. I didn't mean to bring the energy down. I was just curious what you thought. Why did you guys pick Scotland? Did you have family there? No,
SPEAKER_00:although my family does originally come from Scotland. My granny incidentally grew up just around the corner from where we now live, which was just a complete happenstance, really. but we moved to Scotland because we wanted to move initially wanted to just move out of London it was quite difficult for us to afford to live together in like living the way that we wanted to in the city so we're looking at other cities to move to and initially we weren't even thinking about Glasgow but we came to visit some friends and just had a really great time and we thought oh well let's give that a shot and then yeah made the move over to Edinburgh and yeah I think essentially we love living in Scotland and in the landscapes fantastic being able to go out on big hikes use a lot of yeah tend to get out and about quite a lot but then also yeah just have felt incredibly welcomed and yeah I think the political kind of ideology behind the place seems really appealing as well. That would definitely take a part of it. So yeah, I guess it took us a while to figure out that Edinburgh was the place. But yeah, we're here now and fully signed up as families and doing that kind of thing now. So we're here to stay.
SPEAKER_03:And what does your wife do for a living?
SPEAKER_00:She's a primary school teacher.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, she is? What grade does she teach?
SPEAKER_00:In Scotland, they call it P1 and P2, which is basically like the first years of primary school. So the really little ones, four or five years old. So cute. Yeah, she loves it. Yeah, I mean, it's now almost coming to the end of the term here in this time of year. I mean, it's a countdown to the summer holidays, basically, when you're a teacher. So she loves it more at the beginning of the term than the end of the term, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I was reading, I don't know if you just haven't updated your website or if I misread it and I missed a piece, but I thought I read, let's see here. All stained glass works are unique and individually commissioned pieces. We currently work in Glasgow, but are able to install windows across the UK. So you don't have a studio there anymore. You've obviously probably moved it with you. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:I need to update my website. You've just, yeah, I haven't read that for a while and that's kind of embarrassing.
UNKNOWN:No,
SPEAKER_03:no I didn't say that to call you out I didn't say it's like um excuse me you have some housekeeping to do here that's definitely not why I was
SPEAKER_00:I was saying that in every way I do you're right yeah um yeah no that's not true no I don't have a studio I did my last studio in Glasgow was quite I mean I held on to it for a while after leaving Glasgow but because it was such a great space so it was a old retail unit that had a shop it was basically a shop front and the backbone was my studio and the front part was used to host exhibitions and things and kept on to it and kept utilizing that space for a little while after moving over to Edinburgh. But, you know, it just became quite a tricky thing to do. Yeah. Post exhibitions whilst living in another city, trying to run my own business and do the family thing and also trying to have a nice time in between all those responsibilities.
SPEAKER_03:Right. And just geographically, how long, what's the travel time between the two cities? Can you, how far of a car drive is it?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's like an hour. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's an hour. Yeah. And actually train or car, it's basically the same. And so it's really easy. You know, people commute, people live in one city and work in another.
SPEAKER_03:Which city is larger? Oh, I
SPEAKER_00:don't know, actually. I'd say Edinburgh. I mean, the weird thing about Glasgow is it's not at its highest population peak because in times gone by, it was an incredibly poor city, still is in many ways, and had a lot of industry running through it. And as these areas deteriorated, people essentially left. And the city still doesn't have as many people in it as it did in its heyday, which is kind of, mad to think about, especially with the rates of population growth elsewhere. Edinburgh is the capital, so it's got a very different sense to it. It's got the political side and historical side. Yeah, as in people probably would visit Edinburgh as a tourist over Glasgow, but there are definite... yeah very different cities I don't know how much to go into it but
SPEAKER_03:um I'm glad that wasn't a dumb question as soon as I said which city is bigger I thought oh I'm like crossing my fingers and I was like oh god please don't let like one be like huge and the other one is tiny tiny and I should know that that should be
SPEAKER_00:well someone probably will call me out on it now and be like how do you not know this
SPEAKER_03:but uh
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I actually don't know. I would say Edinburgh as a guess.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. I'll go with that. So you do stained glass, but that's not all you do. Your space in Glasgow, is it similar to the one you've opened your new space in terms of like, do you have like exhibitions there? And are you sort of like a host for other artists as well still?
SPEAKER_00:No, not so much. I mean, my studio in Edinburgh is, just that it's a studio workspace for myself and I yeah trying to kind of trim down all of the things because I think as you probably know as with yourself with your own work like very easy to get so excited by different threads and chase all of them but I think over the last year or so I've tried to just focus on the stained glass and not rule things out but to really try and streamline my kind of studio practice into one type of output. That being said, you know, you're always like, you know, a child running off in random directions, getting excited about stuff. And I think it's important to kind of keep all of these interests afloat because I think they often inform one another. And I think for something like Stained Glass, it's got such a... sort of specific aesthetic and application um i think it's really important to question how it sits in the world do you know what i mean like so yeah maybe having other avenues and other things kind of happening in the studio or conversations is a nice way to keep that constant addressing in mind
SPEAKER_03:yeah i agree however i am going to ask you about some other stuff today
SPEAKER_01:okay Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:So we'll just like make note that like moving forward, he's just doing stained glass, but there's a lot of other stuff on your website that I thought was really interesting. And even though it's not super current, I still want to ask you some questions about it. Cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Let's start with how you came up with the name Pavilion Pavilion and what that word is, how you specifically define that word.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I've always been interested in architecture to quite a degree and how architecture and art relate to one another and pavilions I guess what I mean by pavilion is a kind of a slightly utopian building project, something that's done in a maybe avant-garde sense that's pushing what is possible in terms of construction or aesthetics and a pavilion like a folly or in particular thinking about these post-World War kind of international fairs or buildings that were made to kind of show off kind of a future-looking building I don't know, moment of history, whether it's like science or social sciences or technology or whatever's happening, these pavilions that were built post-war as a kind of... an attempt to sort of push forwards new ideas. And often with these buildings, what was really interesting about them is there's kind of a level of effort, I suppose, put into both the kind of styling of the building and what was hosted within them. So you'll have your artefacts or artworks or whatever that were somehow inspired made in relationship to the space or the space was kind of to encourage a more thorough readership of the objects or just this kind of like even playing field between architecture and objects within the spaces. And I just thought that that was an incredibly interesting thing and that maybe... a nice proposition, especially in relationship to stained glass, how you bring buildings and artworks and artifacts into kind of the same dialogue with one another. Because I don't know if this is maybe a bit different in the States, but there's quite a rift in the UK between fine art, contemporary art and applied arts and architecture and design. They're all very different pathways. And I guess I viewed the notion of a pavilion as something that would unify a lot of those approaches. And with stained glass, obviously, in most cases, like architectural glass, it becomes part of a building. So I'd like to consider these windows as something that's like as integral as the kind of other design ideas that happen in a building, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, I'm following. It totally makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_00:So by naming, obviously, the project Pavilion Pavilion rather than Jack Brindley allows it to kind of expand and contract and take different forms of authorship, which I quite liked. And I suppose it's also maybe as a way to slightly... Originally, when I started the project under this alias, it was to make a slight definition between my work as a contemporary artist and somebody who made more functional things. The longer that I do it, I realised that actually it's kind of one and the same thing. I've brought all the baggage that I had with my art practice into the world of making stained glass now. But I think when it started, I wanted to kind of allow for it to... take different forms you know and not have to be under the same kind of umbrella is because I think when you work as an artist there's this branding's a really horrible word but I can't think of a better one but you sort of you allow yourself to make some works but not other works you might have a style that is seemingly quite exclusive and I thought it'd be quite nice for this project to allow yourself to make work that existed outside of what you would ordinarily allow yourself to do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that makes true. I mean, that's very true.
SPEAKER_00:A while ago, doing these kind of funny text drawings, and I don't think I ever sort of released them or showed them in any capacity, but one of them was of the text, Pavilion, Pavilion, and it just seemed to make sense in a way. And also, I think if it was Pavilion, I don't know, free pavilion or there was another noun or adjective with the word pavilion it become like a very precise sort of thing whereas I wanted to kind of the idea of a pavilion or a space that could be flexible or Yeah, I guess I wanted it to be a non-specific space for exploring ideas about art and design. So I guess using the same word twice helped that in a way, maybe.
SPEAKER_03:I like it. I thought that it was also because, well, in my mind, I was thinking because with your work, there are so many repetitive shapes.
SPEAKER_00:Ah, okay. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. And actually, if the title did come from a drawing of the word pavilion, then yeah, maybe it is a formal thing. Maybe it's just how it looks. Yeah. To know how conscious it was, really.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:We're digging deep here today. We're really, you know, getting into that subconscious.
SPEAKER_00:Nowhere to hide.
SPEAKER_03:Each work, it says here on your website, each work is a unique and individually commissioned piece. So all your work is done to commission. You don't have any personal pieces that you make?
SPEAKER_00:Not so much. I do a lot of like tests and samples. And often that's because I've never really, I've glass I've picked it up largely myself and there's lots of techniques that are kind of being learned so I think it's weird because when people do come to my studio it's there's not a lot to show which is maybe a little bit disappointing for some people but yeah almost everything with the stained glass belongs somewhere and that's It's something that I'm really, one of the main reasons I was drawn to working with stained glass is because I have another practice as an artist. And invariably what happened is you get invited to participate in exhibitions and produce work for exhibitions or just you might have work. And for years I've spent moving from studio to studio, taking with me lots of different artworks that gradually become kind of, more broken or dusty and you kind of lose the you know they lose their kind of appeal or lust and become these kind of I don't know milestones around your neck millstones around your neck and the stained glass what's really great about it is you make an artwork and it's visible and it's sort of you know exists somewhere it's quite clear where it is supposed to be in the world I guess one of the sort of eureka moments which happened way before I even thought about taking on stained glass is I was taking part in an exhibition in Cologne and went to go visit the cathedral there and in the Cathedral, one of the main windows is designed by Gerhard Richter, who's a really amazing, very kind of What's the word? I mean, he's a painter, but he's covered a lot of ground over a very long and illustrious career. And seeing him design these windows, essentially it's lots of squares of coloured glass bonded, so not leaded glass, bonded with them. But the impression is with all these different colours of glass put together, the light that comes through the window is actually like a white light as opposed to multicoloured. And as a conceptual idea, and obviously having religious undertone I just thought that that was an amazing thing. And I guess prior to that, I hadn't been so aware of artists in the kind of, you know, normal, kind of formal sense of the word, making stained glass windows. Maybe that was the first one that I saw that I thought, oh, wow, that's like... an artist taking on this. Otherwise, what I thought was only an applied art, if you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, definitely. Where did you learn how to do stained glass?
SPEAKER_00:Well, when I moved to Glasgow, I was still commuting down south to work and then had my studio set up and I had this really weird kind of like well I had like a very unhealthy relationship to my practice and got very frustrated with making work basically and then in a moment of kind of confusion joined up for an evening class to do to learn some stained glass which was like an hour a week for four or five weeks just to make a simple leaded panel alongside lots of mostly retired older people and um I don't even know why I kind of signed up to that. I just think, yeah. Also in Glasgow, there was a huge history of Victorian stained glass. So a lot of the buildings in the city are Victorian tenements. So large, like three-storey, in general, three-storey buildings of flats. And each flat would have the same piece of stained glass. And as the building was commissioned, there'd be different styles of stained glass. And I just thought there was quite... an interesting repeated forms taking part in all these different areas of the city. So maybe there was like an awareness of that and moving to Glasgow. But I think it was just like a, a moment of crisis signing up to this evening class basically.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah. Some of I've, I've spoken with many artists are like, I don't know. I don't know why I signed up for it. It was just, you know, it just pulled you in and here we are today. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to finish that quote that I started asking you about a moment ago. And then I just like went off on a whole circle of random questions. So it says each work is a unique and individually commissioned piece looking at forms found in minimalism and quote painterly hard line abstraction. What is painterly hard line abstraction?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I guess a lot of my interest as an artist come from like a kind of era of artists mostly coming out of like well I think New York in the 60s is the sort of like big moment where the sort of work was being made in the 70s and by that a lot of the work is quite simple geometric very neatly executed and I think what's interesting for me is this is kind of in an era in art where people would make a bold statement and it would sort of, you know, be big news. You know, a lot of these artists were really making waves with what was aesthetically possible. But there was also a real rigour to distilling a form and making it as... pristine as possible. So thinking of artists like Ellsworth Kelly or Immy Noble, the forms in their works are incredibly simple, but somehow, I mean, very far away from basic, if that makes sense. You know, there's a lot of... intent behind their work and also just almost like having pitch perfect ideas of colour and I think this is something which is maybe tricky in glass because you inherit colours mostly and you can get quite good at sort of tweaking things in your favour but I think in general unless you're making your own glass you you know you choose a colour and then go with it But... yeah so I think that yeah just kind of where my interests lie as an artist always had like a huge soft spot for that era of work and even stuff that's still produced today so like almost goes into op arts with artists like Bridget Riley making very kind of or even Sarah Morris who's a contemporary American painter and Yeah, I think that a lot of those styles really lent themselves to stained glass as well. You know, I kind of saw... Yeah, I don't know, like artists who work explicitly with grids as an art form, as a... as a kind of mechanism for making a picture and stained glass by its very nature is a grid, you know, or traditionally was because it's how you can piece together smaller pieces of glass and learning how artists kind of took the grid and used it as a device to encourage the eye to move across the surface of the painting and to not fix on one sort of focal point, which totally is the intention behind that, I suppose, is to disrupt what you'd find in a representative work where you locate on a subject matter whether it's a figurative thing or not but you've got a kind of a focal point whereas something like a grid does the opposite it encourages you to scan your eye over a whole area and so something like that I just thought oh well there's actually quite a nice leap from artists like Agnes Martin working that field to stained glass that is a grid out of practicalities, basically.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You also say your work is influenced by Bauhaus, which is... Let's see, it said, Bauhaus School, where design, architecture, craft, and art were all at the forefront of innovation. And then I wanted to speak... about that school with having read something first because I wanted like a little refresher of exactly what the actual definition of that was. And so I looked it up and it says, the Bauhaus style tends to feature simple geometric shapes like rectangles and spheres without elaborate decorations. Buildings, furniture, and fonts often feature rounded corners and sometimes rounded walls. Other buildings are characterized by rectangular features, for example, protruding balconies with flat chunky railings facing the street and long banks of windows. Furniture often uses chrome metal pipes that curve at the corners. Let's see. The Bauhaus Art School operated from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts. The school became famous for its approach to design, which attempted to unify individual artistic vision with the principles of mass production and emphasis on function. The Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential current currents in modern design modernist architecture and architectural education the Bauhaus movement had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art architecture graphic design interior design industrial design and typography which is kind of everything you just said right all the way back to like what the name pavilion comes from Oh,
SPEAKER_00:good. Well, I was thinking when you originally said that you've been reading my website, like, oh man, I need to really sort out that website, but maybe it still says things which ring true. So that's not so bad.
SPEAKER_03:yes no there is a lot of the truth there it's not like uh what's that game two truths and a lie that's what your website is it's the game two truths and a lie where you have to go through and like you say three things and you got to figure out which one is uh is happening currently
SPEAKER_00:oh brilliant yeah so i'll pop a couple of those in then
SPEAKER_03:there you go um okay so there's a page on your site you have your whole And at the bottom, you click read more. You say a rock is a perfect metaphor, an allegory in volume. When placed, its sculptural limits beget a kind of artistic proposition. And when considered with reduced anthropomorphism and ungeologically produce a ready-made analog to the causation and bounds of our attempts at the understanding of all things. I read that like, I don't know. ten times
SPEAKER_00:I've always quite liked the idea of an artwork also being a placeholder and by that I mean something that can be almost like a content waiting to happen you know it's like it's um not a void as such but you know it's holding the space for like an ideology or something and i don't know i think i'm also just drawn to geology rocks i think often there's uh the huge amount of effort that goes into making things aesthetically beautiful or interesting and you can come across a lump of something which hasn't had any like intention put behind it that you think is wow that's kind of great in its own right um so yeah maybe a bit of that and i think maybe there's some thinking that when it comes to making about being light-handed like whether you need to over embellish or over kind of do something to make it work aesthetically um whereas you know sometimes you can just find something one of the things i mean windows are such a funny one because obviously not every space is needs to kind of have stained glass in it you know often windows are just far better just to be as clear as possible so you can see what's going on or to let clear light in or whatever so maybe something about like trying to keep uh simplicity of form current with work that you make you know
SPEAKER_02:um
SPEAKER_00:One of the dangers with stained glass for me and maybe for everyone is that you come across this incredibly seductive material in lots of amazing colours and it's very tempting to throw all of the amazing colours at one thing and then quite quickly it can look quite chaotic. And that's great if that's what you want to achieve, but it's not really... where I'm aiming my work at. So yeah, I think pairing stuff back maybe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I
SPEAKER_03:don't know. Maybe I need to update my website too. present in the room and to not overshadow it well said I think that that's just like sort of like a redundant thing to say as well you just said all that but I wanted to I liked the way that you articulated that there in that paragraph what is your relationship to what is your relationship to architecture before you began stained glass
SPEAKER_00:well my dad was an architect so I guess from a very young age it was there as a thing You know, you'd be walking around and you'd point things out and talk about buildings that he loved or hated. So I suppose I've always been aware of it. And yeah, I mean, space is such a fundamental thing, isn't it? Like you make an environment for people to live their lives in, to work, to play and all these things, you know, and there's... I kind of feel like we've entered this generation where a lot of contemporary buildings are quite mean. You know, windows maybe being smaller than they need to be or ceilings being quite low. I think... I guess I'm talking about most kind of homes that are built now as opposed to public buildings because in public buildings there's quite a lot of flair that gets shown off by architects but in a lot of private homes and I feel like it's a shame that a lot of them are so identikit and stripped back and maybe something like stained glass could filter in even if it's a new development and there's like 200 of the same homes being built why not kind of like the Victorian era build in the same piece of glass work into each one of them or I just feel like there's an intention not too long ago when people designed and built buildings that were quite generous in a way and maybe wanted to generate a certain quality of life. Whereas, I don't know, I feel like a lot of buildings currently are very, you know, stingy. They're sort of pinching at all kind of avenues where to save money. And I think it shows. So, yeah, Sorry, what was the question again? I don't know if I'm
SPEAKER_03:answering it. No, you really are, actually. I asked you what your relationship was to architecture before you started Stained Glass because it's such a focus of your work. But you're on the right train. Keep going.
SPEAKER_00:Cool, yeah. Yeah, and I think, like, you know, still... You know, I believe in art as a thing. I believe it in a positive thing for good. I feel like the industry surrounding art, I have issues with, many issues with, and finding a way for art to belong inside a building in quite a simple way just felt like a really natural move. so yeah i guess with architecture i think it's hard to describe when something to me seems so obvious like if you spend most of your life indoors the quality of that space is incredibly important and it should be treated with a huge amount of respect i think so i guess maybe I should have become an architect and didn't, but, um, yeah, maybe the glasswork is a way to kind of play a part in that, um, Yeah, and I suppose for Stained Glass it's like the vast, the majority of work that I've done to date is being invited to do things in places that already exist. But I've got a couple of works coming up which is for spaces that actually don't yet exist. And that's a really interesting thing because it's working with the way that something looks or feels in a space prior to that existing. So it feels like a really fundamental, like intervention which is yeah maybe quite similar to that Bauhaus thing you were saying earlier which is this unifying of all these art forms and I think if an architect or somebody whoever's commissioning a building or building a building wants to invite an artist to make something of a space. I think it's just a really, I think that's a really amazing thing. And I think it's actually increasingly quite rare, um, So, yeah, but it's really exciting. I feel like it's a different approach responding to a space when it's not kind of doesn't exist yet, basically.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that is really interesting. I'm going to have to interview again when this is all said and done and we can talk about the differences of that experience.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, it might take a while. These things take ages. I'm learning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So you have your website divided into different sections. You have one section that's objects and then the other section is...
SPEAKER_00:Projects.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. So under objects, we have stained glass, we have lighting, we have a hundred different sticks, and then you have the rattan stools. And then under projects, we have, I'll just run through these real quick, CJ Mahoney, LS Goma 07 Tune, ZA Wallach, Early Modern Perfume Collaboration, Alan Stanners, Richard Hards, Jessica Wilson, Kerber, and Ryan Ganler. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So let's start with objects. Obviously, the first being stained glass and moving forward, only stained glass sounds like at least for a while. I noticed when we're discussing colors that you chose, I noticed that you're very heavy with blue and yellow. Have you noticed that? Are those just your favorite colors?
SPEAKER_00:Pretty much, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, no, it's gorgeous. Gorgeous shades. They are all, they work fantastically, but I just, I saw that theme and so I thought I'd ask.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I think it's also like just wanting to pair the color palette down and it makes sense to choose quite a bright or quite a strong color as the kind of main feature your color maybe. In
SPEAKER_03:regards to your color selection in your personal experience do you find that your clients trust you to make the choices or do you find that they usually come to you with exactly what they want?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah I feel like when people approach me it's because they've seen my work and because of that it's it it's basically i'm put at an advantage because they probably like what i'm producing and it means that i can suggest it kind of gives you a bit more free reign to suggest things um so that's that's really cool so i think often sometimes the the type of space like if it's a certain shape of aperture then that instantly has some kind of like you have some approach to dealing with that so those things I think what I'm finding at the moment is that I'm quite keen to start dropping out lead with a lot of my current windows and I think a lot of people take a bit more convincing to do something that's a bit more I don't know less sort of recognizably stained glass if you know what I mean like as in not leaded glass leaded windows yeah it's it's interesting because often like you know if you're sending drawings to people there's no like there just has to be a moment of trust where they see a drawing and then say okay well let's do that let's make that into a window and often what could be a very simple drawing can make a really exciting window and a really striking window but as a drawing Maybe it's not so interesting. And that's the thing. It's like either trying to enable the imagination of your clients to visualize these things or just to get them to trust you to go with it.
SPEAKER_03:So after your stained glass section, you go into lighting and you've done quite a bit with lighting, actually, with lamps and also with wall lights. And it's with fusing glass. Are you doing that there in your studio? Do you have kilns and the whole bit?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I've got a small kiln, which does a fair amount. I've got access to some larger kilns not far from the studio that you can rent out. So that's really handy. I haven't been doing much fusing or object mating. Well, that's a lie. I'm experimenting with doing some casting glass to cast elements for windows. But I haven't been doing that much lighting recently. And yeah, something I'd like to go back to. I just, yeah, maybe haven't figured out the best application for it recently.
SPEAKER_03:As far as experimenting is going, you also, in your stories, you recently posted about some tests you were doing with painting on glass, specifically with enamel and silver stain for a commission for a pair of sliding screens. And you're holding two pieces of glass and sliding them one in front of the other. And it's a really cool result. What's happening with that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that's still kind of in progress, picking it up this week, actually. And the current discussion is whether to work with some etched, flashed glass or... to go with the enamels I mean obviously I guess the reason why I've been trying to kind of hone in on enamels is that flashed glass is incredibly expensive and there's a limit to the size that you can go to I mean obviously you can piece them together but Yeah, I think what's interesting about that is I'd like to probably use some very vibrant colours, but in a very kind of... If you'd imagine... equal amounts of kind of color and no color so the general impression would be quite muted but if you look closely you realize that the colors are incredibly bright um but a lot of those tests were just come to grips with how to best screen print on glass um because i think a lot of the enamels i've avoided not avoided painting but i've kind of been a bit dissatisfied with a lot of painting just because it's very hard to get a large area of completely flat color. But the screen printing does that basically.
SPEAKER_03:Is that what you're doing when you're peeling the black vinyl off of? What is the black vinyl that you're peeling?
SPEAKER_00:So that is probably a resist. So if it's like sandblasting, getting black vinyl cut. So you can either cut it by hand or have it laser cut. And then obviously applying it to the glass and sandblasting it. And it's a resist, basically.
SPEAKER_03:Got it. Cool. Is that part of the same project?
SPEAKER_00:Possibly actually. So if it's, I don't know if you call it, but do you know what I mean by flashed glass?
SPEAKER_03:I do. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Do you
SPEAKER_03:want to define it for our listeners?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, sure. So basically flashed glass is, so it's mouth blown handmade glass and it will be a color normally clear with a thin layer of another color put on the top surface so say you look clear sheet of glass with a very thin layer of blue on top you can etch away the blue layer to reveal the clear below so you can get like an image onto a single sheet of glass without having to either paint and the benefit of um flashed glass as opposed to enamels is because it's glass as opposed to an additional kind of painted on surface it has a like much greater sense of luminosity it's really vibrant it's that's handmade so it's got a real liveliness to the quality of the glass and yeah it's just really gorgeous stuff it's also really not cheap
SPEAKER_03:yes true and where are you getting your glass
SPEAKER_00:Oh, man. Yeah, it's such... Yeah, it's a real problem. So there's not really very many manufacturers in the UK. There's not really any manufacturers in the UK of mouth blown glass. People can make it, but not in a sort of... not in a formal way you know there's not like a shop or a person set up making it so the other go-to places there was until recently a very good polish producer called patra who's just shut their furnaces down for the last time so they have gone unfortunately and the only real Well, there's basically two people in Europe making, well, two big companies making mouth blowing glass. in Europe. One's Lambert's in Germany and the other one is in France. And that's it basically, which is really sad, I think, because it's not a replaceable medium. You know, I think machine-made glass is, it can be fantastic. And if used well, it can be really beautiful and convincing, but yeah, mouth-watering glass is a completely different thing, I think.
SPEAKER_03:So special. For our listeners, there's the distributor here in the U.S. is Bentheim for Lamberts. I can link it.
SPEAKER_00:Are there people doing mouth blowing glass in the U.S.?
UNKNOWN:?
SPEAKER_03:There's Fremont, which is on the West Coast. And then I know that Tyler Kimball was kind of experimenting with it a little bit at Monarch Glass in Kansas City. Is there anybody else that you know about that I'm not thinking of?
SPEAKER_00:No, no, no. Because the only American glass that we get in this country is... Either, well, Bullseye or Oceanside, which is actually from Mexico, but it's an American company, I think.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it used to be in America. It moved on to Mexico. We also have Yakagini. We have Wismac. We have, oh my gosh, Kokomo.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I'm sure that I'm forgetting somebody. Hopefully it's not a sponsor, whoever it is. But I think those are the first ones that are coming to mind. But yeah, if anybody else knows about any other hand blown glass, please let us know. I'd like to know.
SPEAKER_00:Hopefully it will come back. I mean, it's quite labour and energy intensive to make, unfortunately. But yeah, there are... something called the crafts council in the uk and basically they support crafts and they've got a red list of endangered crafts and they change it every year to sort of show what needs to be supported and stained glass is now on that list as a it needs a bit of support basically and um Yeah, I think that's interesting. I mean, in some cases, I think that's true, especially with traditional painting. There's few and few people who know how to do that. Mouth blowing like glass, sheet glass is basically non-existent. So, yeah, hopefully a little bit of acknowledgement of these things might bring them back. But it's, yeah, I mean, it just requires so much infrastructure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it really does. The next thing you have under objects are some rattan stools you made back in 2019. And it says rattan stools, but in the photograph, is there a table and stools or are those just two sizes of stools?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, a table and stools. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And that seems sort of like a left turn from everything else. How did that come about?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I don't know. I think that this is all a time when I was trying to create a level playing field for art and design and architecture to exist in the same place. So it seemed to make sense to make furniture as well.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:would love to continue to do all these things but i feel like it would just lead me to becoming literally a jack of all trades and i'd like to kind of make Yeah, the stained glass is the thing that's like captured my imagination a bit more. And I think that it's maybe a more, yeah, exciting avenue to explore. So I've sort of shelved a lot of the kind of more furniture making things.
SPEAKER_03:I hope you don't mind me asking about all of these things, even though it's not stained glass. It's all super interesting. And it really does... you do have a really nice blend there of bringing in design and architecture and into all these different projects. And they are all very cohesive. I know that you feel like it's just like jack of all trades, but I totally see a line. I see a line through all of it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, cool. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, let's move on to projects. A different section here on your website. So a lot of these are exhibitions that you've done with different artists. This next one, I've been the most excited to ask you about this. I mean, outside of the stained glass. The stained glass is number one. This is number two. Early Modern is a brand that you did a perfume collaboration with. Let's see. It says here, it began as a conversation about architecture. How can we evoke the idea of monuments or pavilions. Both the perfume and its bottle became an exploration of iconic buildings and post-war art. Pine and cedar, both as living forest and sans straight, composed like Donald Judd furniture. The metallic tang of dreamlike skyscrapers or of blood at the back of your throat. A hint of smoke, some unknown vapor, woody yet translucent, like remembering a ghost. And then it also says, I mean... never in my life if i wanted to smell a perfume this badly
SPEAKER_00:i'll send you some
SPEAKER_03:thank you so you still you have some
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah yeah yeah we it was uh kind of uh not a limited edition but we did an edition of i think it was 150 um but yeah we still have some
SPEAKER_03:it's available in your shop if any of the listeners do want to purchase a bottle is that correct you have it available there
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, great. And how much does one bottle retail for? Oh,
SPEAKER_00:man, I have it on my website. And that's probably the best place to look because I can't think off the top of my head. Okay,
SPEAKER_03:okay. I wrote down that you have it on your website, but I didn't write down the price. But it's out there in the world. People can find it if they're curious.
SPEAKER_00:That was the website. Yeah, it was the
SPEAKER_03:website. Yeah. I'm going to ask you your three final questions. The first one is, is who is your favorite stained glass artist?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, man. I think probably, I'm probably going to pronounce this wrong, by the way, as a caveat. That's
SPEAKER_03:the story of
SPEAKER_00:my life. Yeah. The way that I would pronounce it is Jochem Pogsnen. Spelled J-O-E-C-E-M, I think. And then sometimes P-O-E-N-G-S-N. Yen, something like that. Yeah, I think when I saw his work, it kind of blew my mind as to how radical stained glass could be, basically. And yeah, it really opened my eyes in a way that I don't think many others... How do you say this? I think what he has done is just quite groundbreaking, really.
SPEAKER_03:I'm looking him up right now.
SPEAKER_00:So he's made some windows, which are, I guess, kind of leaded windows, but the glass is held in place with squares of lead that clamps the glass onto its surface rather than working with traditional cane. Oh, wow. Wow,
SPEAKER_03:wow, wow. This is so cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I actually haven't seen many people making work like it either, which is really amazing.
SPEAKER_03:Is he still alive?
SPEAKER_00:You know what? I don't know. Because... He's definitely an older artist, but I remember seeing a book of his and it's in German. They don't have it in English, but I remember saying, Oh, maybe there's actually new stuff since I went last month on the website. So yeah, I guess he is. But I emailed the contacts on the website to see if I could get a copy of this book and never got a response. So I just presume maybe he wasn't around, but yeah, actually there's some new stuff. And weirdly, the first page that comes up is something that looks quite similar to something I've just made. Oh,
SPEAKER_03:yeah. There's also a picture of him. Yeah, he's an older gentleman.
SPEAKER_00:But, yeah, I just think really radical in his approach. And, yeah, it's totally my style as well. I think everything he has done, I think, is just, yeah, super exciting.
SPEAKER_03:So cool. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm definitely going to have a link for everybody. So get yourself to the show notes so you can see what we're looking at right now. And then the next question for you is, who is your favorite artist outside of Glass?
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, um... Oh, I don't know, actually. Yeah, that's a hard question. I can be quite fickle with it. An artist who I currently have a huge amount of admiration for is Robert Irwin. And the American artist working in the kind of 60s, 70s, started off making quite minimal abstract paintings. And over the course of his career, basically, kind of... reduced the amount of work that was present maybe so the work became increasingly more minimal and famously also did things like he helped redesign certain buildings so the DIA beacon which is upstate of upstate New York he worked with an art foundation to help develop and build the gallery space and as a making even more minimal works to then start working with how you create spaces, I think is a really interesting trajectory. Really amazing artists. I think currently one of my faves, if I could only choose one.
SPEAKER_03:And then the next question, the final question is, what are your five to 10 year goals?
SPEAKER_00:Five to 10 year goals. I guess it's to, yeah, really try and be quite ambitious with what windows are. And in focusing in my attention to making stained glass as opposed to other things, I think it's just to kind of push what windows is available, you know, and I think... I think part of that working in glass is also about scale. I mean, I mean that both in terms of like how making larger scale work, but also being able to kind of accommodate these things. Like my studio is fine at the moment. I feel very lucky to work out of a place called the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, which is this amazing facility, but essentially could have a bigger studio with more resources, more like tools and kit like that would be really the the dream to kind of set up to do a lot of these processes in-house you know um like sandblasting is a thing that I go elsewhere to do larger kiln work I have to fire elsewhere so I guess the five to ten year goal would be to kind of be able to do more of these things yeah in-house
SPEAKER_03:yeah yes that would be really nice to have all those fun toys all in one space
SPEAKER_00:yeah absolutely yeah i kind of wonder because sometimes it's about having limited resources forces you to be like extra resourceful if you know what i mean um so yeah i don't know i could imagine me maybe winning the lottery and having this vast studio space with all these amazing bits of kit and then maybe not necessarily making any better work. So who knows?
SPEAKER_03:That's very true. That is very, very, very true. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that, honestly, most of the artists who I've interviewed, who I would really consider trailblazers, who have really figured out a new way of doing something or have their own very, very unique style of doing something, have come about it because of their limited resources, because they just had to think outside the box in order to get to what they were envisioning in their mind.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's right. I was actually talking about today with a friend and so there's that Chinese board game called Go. Have you come across it? It's meant to have almost infinite possibilities and they have yet to have an AI program that is as good as a human playing it. But there can be very skilled masters at the game that still have the potential to lose against a beginner because there's certain chaotic rules of play. And there's I guess there's something about this beginner's mind that allows you to make stupid mistakes that can be really beneficial. And I think that's really the case with art in general. You know, I think maybe the downfall of a lot of crafts or applied arts is people get so caught up in correct ways of executing things that the kind of the joy of the material, the artfulness kind of falls by the wayside of the process and yeah I think maybe it's kind of important and yeah that's the thing with having all these resources at your fingertips like maybe it just means you end up making everything correctly but maybe something made incorrectly is more interesting
SPEAKER_03:Thousand percent. Yes. I think making geometric stained glass is a very saturated corner of the market. There's a lot of people who are making geometric work, but yours just really stands out. Your designs are so beautiful and interesting. And I just really appreciate everything that you're making.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. That's, that's so kind. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's always nice to hear, isn't it? Because studios are quite lonely places. So
SPEAKER_03:that's the truth. Yes, that is the truth.
SPEAKER_00:But also like stained glass kind of it's, the easiest thing to make is geometric stuff. And it's always been the tradition of like, you know, diamond glazed windows or square glazed windows. And that's what I guess drew me to it in the first place was that you've got this standard form, which is, was chosen out of like pragmatism you know you make square glazed windows because originally you'd get square shaped bits of glass coming out of molds and you'd put lead around them and there you'd have your window but it's the kind of aesthetic inadvertent aesthetic connection of that uh style of art um you know, this minimalist painting abstraction that I really appreciate, that just seemed to kind of marry together so perfectly, which is probably why I started making windows in that way, because it's like, seems like two very disparate worlds landing in the same place in a kind of beautiful way.
SPEAKER_03:Definitely. Well, you found your niche. Definitely. It's working. Keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, great. Yeah. Well, yeah, that and, you know, maybe as another stab to ask the five to 10 year question, I think it's about innovation as well. I think it's important to keep on questioning what you're doing. So we'll see how that goes.
SPEAKER_03:We'll see how that goes. Well, Jack, have a wonderful and productive day in the studio today, and I'll talk to you really soon.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. Thanks for your time and your questions. Cheers. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_03:To see more of Jack's work, his Instagram is at pavilionpavilion underscore. That's P-A-V-I-L-I-O-N P-A-V-I-L-I-O-N underscore. And mine is at runaglassworks. For the Cracked Patreon page, Jack is gifting an original drawing that's called grid study made in 2022 and it's charcoal and ink on paper it's about 16 and a half by 12 inches and i'll be doing a drawing for that 12 days after the release of this episode which is sunday july 9 2023 next week we're headed back to the states for tattoos vintage chevys americana and custom stained glass taillights it's a girl after my own rubber burning heart It's Lindsay Wonder from Tucson, Arizona. Till next time. Bye.