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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-30/glass-artist-tom-moore-wins-fuse-glass-prize/104377172>
'When Tom Moore first watched a team of glass blowers at work, he says "it felt
like they were juggling fire … it blew my mind".
Decades on, the now-acclaimed Australian artist contorts this molten material
himself, with a familiarity and control that is hard to fathom.
"When you see hot glass fresh out of the furnace. It is very beautiful, and it
is just so full of potential. There's so many things you could do with it,"
says Moore.
"Most of the time, because it's expensive to get this hot, you really have to
know what you're going to do with it. You can't really mess around with it. You
just work."
Guided by Moore, his team of four work together at Adelaide's Jam Factory,
executing their precise roles to build his latest work — which he describes as
a "bird on bird on bird situation".
A pig-tailed assistant uses a metal rod to thrust open the glowing furnace,
which is burning at around 1,150 degrees Celsius.
"That thing is a dragon," says Moore. "Just going up to a furnace and opening
the door is intimidating."
"We singe the hair on [our] head all the time."
Over a three-hour period, the glass is rotated inside the furnace, momentarily
removed for a bout of shaping, stretching or fusing of elements, and then
returned to the flames — again and again.
"Weirdly, glass is a very bad conductor of heat, so it takes a long time to get
it hot. And once it's hot, it stays hot, and once it gets cold, it takes a long
time to get it hot again," says Moore.
"You've got to stand up and sit down and put it back in the fire all the time,
constantly. That's one reason why we need to work in teams."
Moore's had more hands-on experience with the material than most. He led the
making of all sorts of glass objects — like trophies, light shades, bottles and
bowls, and movie props — as the Jam Factory Glass Studio production manager
between 1999 and 2015.
"I really do feel connected to the history of glass blowing, and that is
because I've spent thousands of hours working as part of teams making objects,
which are the same objects that have been made now for thousands of years,"
says Moore.
His own highly distinct, skilful glass creations have been featured in
exhibitions at most of Australia's major state galleries, along with a national
tour of his solo exhibition
Abundant Wonder from 2020-2023.
And this year, he took out the 2024 FUSE Glass Prize, Australia's richest prize
for glass art, which goes on display at the Australian Design Centre in Sydney
this October.'
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*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
