More glass pieces from my collection

All of the posted forms were blown in dry Iron Bark wood formers, the technique of blowing glass in dry wood moulds started out as an accident. I always had wooden square or rectangular open moulds in the studio that I kept in water. The routine was to take the mould from the water bucket and blow the hot glass into the mould, there was no need to use the mould boy as I described in my earlier rantings as there was no hinge, the slightly charred wet surface of the mould was enough for the formed glass to be slide out in a cloud of steam. Once used the mould was returned to the water bucket. Luckily on this particular occasion I had forgotten to return the mould to the water bucket and I inadvertently blew glass in the dried out mould, the glass became stuck in the wood mould and I had to fight to get it out! The piece was stretched and was no good, but I noticed a faint imprint on the surface of the glass, and this was the start of a 10 year obsession with dry wood moulds. To a accelerate the burnt-out process I would carve out the shape I wanted with a wood chisel and then would burn out the carved out shape with a blow torch , the two haves were joined together with a hinge and two metal arms were screwed on to the out side to enable the former to be clipped to the mould boy, and we good to go!

The great reward about this accidental technique was that every time the mould was used some of the burnt wood would fall away, so the mould was in a continuous state of change. The studio would fill with smoke when I used these formers and tears would often fill my eyes, but if you can imagine how those head forms looked glowing on the end of the blow pipe and looking back at me with a questing look on their faces it was priceless.

The shell form was part of an exhibition that I had with Ross Stay (textile designer) at the Noosa Gallery, the mushroom was from another exhibition that sold very well I remember, it seemed all of the Phallus shaped mushrooms sold first!

Peter Goss