Inspired by acupuncture: flameworking
Hugo writes: I’ve always been blessed with fascinating patients and no two days are the same. Even though I might start an initial treatment with a well-rehearsed introductory spiel on Chinese medicine, it’s always guaranteed to go off on some fascinating tangents.
Emma and I have had just such talks from the very beginning – the mushrooms she’s picking at the moment and the best place to find them, the imagery of a menopausal ‘second spring’ in TCM, seasonal foods and five element eating.
Then one day – after a few discussions on how qi is seen to flow in the body, and the idea of pre- and post-heaven qi – Emma turned up to her next appointment with ‘a little present’.
As an artisanal glass flameworker who uses only a blow-torch, Emma has explained to me how she regularly perceives and makes sense of the world around her through her craft. So it was instinctive that she went straight home after her treatment and created a set of glasses depicting qi.
Apart from being beautiful to look at, the stemmed glasses are feather-light and incredibly tactile, as well as being a pleasure to drink from.
With her incredible skill, Emma has conjured the appearance of a vibrant energy – swirling and flowing throughout the figure-like stem, it stretches from DU 20 to KID 1 and even depicts the dai mai!
Then as you hold the glass up to the light the mastery is complete. As the ‘surface’ fades away you are left with a deeper, denser evocation of energy – ever present, seemingly foundational, underpinning and supporting the figure, and yet for the most part unseen.
Emma writes: Eating and drinking should be a convivial affair – talking with friends, ironing out differences, setting the world to rights, making plans. As a glass flameworker, I feel that I can – and should – create glassware that adds to this experience. Vessels for drink that are also vessels for ideas.
Having started a course of acupuncture recently, I was interested in the seemingly very different approach to the body that traditional Chinese medicine takes. I decided – as usual! – to see if I could help visualise and interpret this theme in glassware, in the shape of a set of stemmed ‘wine’ glasses.
I use a small gas-fired bench torch to melt and manipulate rods and tubes of glass. This approach often feels more detailed and intimate than the ‘hot furnace’ way of working.
I often use a bespoke mould to texture my wine glasses, lining it with plants which leave their imprint on the finished glass. For this set I used oak leaves – giving a sense of history, longevity and connection with the land, along with sustenance in the form of acorns and some of the best edible fungi.
For the stem, a human figure – the goblet stretching from their head, the foot of the glass at their feet. A traditional wine glass form with a sense of continuity from top to base. I have used a layered approach with colour applying a base layer over a rod of clear glass and overlaying with clear for depth.
On top of this base, I ‘drew’ thin lines of a different, hazier colour, to represent lines of energy. These thin lines were twisted together using a ‘spot-heat-and-twist’ approach, before adding another coat of clear glass and sculpting the result.
I then used ‘mashers’ to flatten the glass before heating, pulling and reshaping where necessary. Details were added using a brass knife.
The human figure is often taught to flameworkers in a way that emphasises underlying muscle structures. As Chinese thinking seems more concerned with energy, I decided not to take that route. Instead, I opted for a more diagrammatic approach. To me this illustrates the concept of energy beneath the surface but also shows it as mysterious – which it definitely is for someone brought up with very western concepts of medicine!
From the start, I knew I wanted to make a set of six glasses. Handily for me, although Chinese thinking allows for just five elements – water, wood, earth, fire, metal – it would appear that some western interpretations go for air in place of metal. So, I’ve used both!
