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RANAMOK GLASS PRIZE 2007 Underwriter and Gold Sponsor of the 2007 Ranamok Glass Prize v Gold Sponsor RANAMOK GLASS PRIZE SPONSORS 2007 Contents The Ranamok Glass Prize 2007 3 Jane Morrisey 42 Ranamok 2007 – Some Nudibranch Art Glass: Judgmental Observations 4 Laurie Young and Christian Arnold 44 Finalists Ruth Oliphant 46 Ebony Addinsall 6 Graham Orridge 48 Kate Baker 8 Wayne Pearson 50 Romani Benjamin 10 Lou Pendergrast Mathieson 52 Claudia Borella 12 Dale Roberts 54 Anne Clifton 14 Matthew Ryan 56 Hilary Crawford 16 Iris SiYi Shen 58 Mike Crawford 18 Adam Sinclair 60 Evelyn Dunstan 20 Jenny Smith 62 Jaymz Edmonds 22 Rob Stewart 64 Benjamin Edols and Jennifer Taylor 66 Kathy Elliott 24 Bethany Wheeler 68 Judi Elliott 26 Vicki Fanning 28 Finalists’ Biographies 70 Brenden Scott French 30 Glossary of Glass Terms 78 Kevin Gordon 32 The Judges 80 Brent King 34 Ranamok 2007 Tour Dates 81 James McMurtrie 36 Acknowledgements 81 Karleena Mitchell 38 Peng (Faye) Mo 40 2 The Ranamok Glass Prize 2007 A few people do a lot to make the Ranamok Prize work. I’d like to acknowledge all of the hard work by everyone that has been involved in making the 13th Ranamok Glass Prize a reality. It’s a major undertaking. In particular, my thanks go to Maureen Cahill who is the co-founder of the Prize, the directors of Ranamok Glass Prize, this year’s judging panel (Gillian McCracken, Ivana Jirasek and Frank Howarth), and finally the three people who administer the Prize, Glen Loxton, my daughter Elizabeth and my wife Deirdre. As Chairman of Ranamok Glass Prize, one of my jobs is to make sure we have enough money to stage the exhibition. The lion’s share of our funding comes from corporate sponsors. Last year, Excel Coal, which has underwritten the Prize since 2002, was sold to Peabody Energy (incidentally, also one of our corporate sponsors), so we were left with a potential major hole in our funding capacity. However, I’m pleased to say that a new public company, Whitehaven Coal, has since filled the breach as our new underwriter. Whitehaven’s commitment has, in turn, been supported by the donations of over 20 corporate sponsors. Without your support, it simply wouldn’t happen and we do appreciate your assistance. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge all of the artists who put themselves and their work on the line. Without your imagination, skill and effort, there would be no Ranamok. This year’s show is a good one… we are seeing established, well known artists taking interesting new directions and a number of new artists with some very exciting work. Andy Plummer Once again, the Ranamok beacon shines brightly. We are very grateful to all of those who have made this happen. Maureen Cahill Glass Artists’ Gallery Co-founder, Ranamok 3 Ranamok 2007 – Some Judgmental Observations To corrupt an advertisement, it’s the quality of the things considered 2007, and Jaymz Edmonds’s work we reject that makes Ranamok so good, and If it weren’t for your gumboots all bring a bit of this year we did indeed reject high quality works. humour to the show, and are excellent works. More of that later. What about social commentary? Should a Ranamok is now firmly established as the survey of movement as new, but as progressive as art glass glass art practice in Australia and New Zealand, and engage with contemporary social issues? I think I feel privileged indeed to be a judge; now for the yes. And here I’m limited by commenting on second year. So in this introduction you get my what was entered for, and ultimately selected perspective, both as judge and as a collector. And in, this year’s show, rather than a fuller survey before anyone runs away and looks for biases based of the field. So far as the selected works are on what I will declare later of my own interests, the concerned, Jane Morrisey’s beautifully self judging is done without knowing the maker’s contained and perpetual Shower is one work name, and is the sum of the judges’ views, the with an overtly contemporary issue (resources, highest common denominator, and we are a good presumably especially water) behind it. It’s a lot, with complementary prejudices and beautifully literal work, but where are the more preferences! subtle metaphors? Does Venus Rising (Nudibranch While trying to think of what (new?) I could say Art Glass – Laurie Young and Christian Arnold) in this introduction, I went back and had a look at fit the bill, as it illustrates “the fragility of nature some of my books on glass from the 80’s and 90’s. and the detritus of man’s wasteful attitudes to The catalogues for International Directions in Glass Art the earth”? Perhaps. (1982) and the National Art Glass Collection (1995), When I first saw Dale Roberts’s ironically named and the excellent book Australian studio glass: the Life, I went zooming off to the artist’s statement movements, its makers and their art1 (1995) were useful looking for sinister connections with terrorism or references. I wanted to see what had changed over starvation. His statement: “Death equals change; the years of the Ranamok (originally RFC) prize, change equals life” seems a more basic view of because I like change. And I’d love to say here life and death. And I’ll resist the critic’s tendency that I saw a logical evolution and development of to post-hoc psychological analysis of the artist’s expression and ideas. I saw some development, motives and just assume he means what he says. some change, but less than I expected, or indeed Perhaps the best example in the show of an issue hoped for. Perhaps the time was too short. or influence that certainly wasn’t there in the Much, if not all I saw in those and other books, 80’s is Faye Peng’s absolutely wonderful reference would not look out of place in a show now. to “manga and comics” in her work 37°C. Indeed, They were good then; they’re good now. So what’s using glass as a canvas did not seem very common missing now? Where is the good and new? in the earlier years. What did I want to find in Ranamok 2007? Where are the indigenous influences, Australian Some things I was hoping to see are present now. Aboriginal or Maori? A couple of the works that There is some more whimsy, some humour. didn’t make the cut drew on Maori influences, Iris SiYi Shen’s small but elegant Snuff Bottles, but no entries, so far as I can tell, deal in any way Brendan Scott French’s funny but edgy Predator - all with Aboriginal themes or issues. And there are 4 1 Noris Ioannou, Roseville East, Craftsman House in association with G+B Arts International indigenous glass artists. Why no entries I wonder? innovation, and some just passed. Looking at the Similarly, expressions of varied cultures are also works selected for showing, I leave you to guess absent. Are certain cultures (Anglo? European?) what was in the latter category! For the creators of more interested in glass than others? those not selected, there is something to dwell on. Looking back to my 80’s and 90’s sources, the When I read these words again I decided other missing theme is mixed media. It’s in this that my impressions of this year’s Ranamok come show in a minor way (glass fish plus seaweed, across a little more negative than they were meant glass water droplets plus tin and monofilament) to. All the works in this show are really good and but to me the media other than the glass in these several are outstanding (and I’m writing this before works is in a supporting, nowhere near equal role. we have done the final round of judging and Are we also shy of mixing media in Australian and selected the winner). I love Brent King’s beautiful New Zealand glass in general? Mixing it to a high reclining mask that is Visage 2, borrowing as enough quality anyway. it does from earlier art movements. Beacon, Looking back over the finalists again, we have Adam Sinclair’s neoclassical tower, seems to a high proportion of works either very directly exude colour and light. I’ve already mentioned based on “real things” (the fish, the gumboots, Faye Mo’s 37°C, but it’s worth complimenting the shower, the knife and steel, the shells atop the again for its exploration of the influence of manga. lampwork, the skull, the green native clematis) or Rob Stewart’s Language and Meaning seems to clearly influenced by them (faces on panels, a leaf, me to draw on the clarity of glass to contrast with bones and back bones). I like the literal re-creation and strengthen the theme that words and their of something in glass that plays on certain qualities meaning are often confused and dependent of glass (solidity, inflexibility, fragility) as compared on perspective. The chatter that is intrinsic to to that of the original object (think gumboots: Ebony Addinsall’s Connections in White is both pliable, rubbery, bouncy). These works are really elegant and whimsical. While I commented good, but works based on pure abstraction seems above on the relative shortage of abstract works, less present this year than at other times. Bethany Wheeler’s Billow abstracts landscape and culture in a beautifully balanced (in every And now declaring another personal preference, sense) work.

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