Max Jacquard

These bowls were an off-shoot from the large screen that we made in 2005. The natural texture of the bed of the river at low tide and the curious collection of objects left in amongst the pebbles and gravel was the inspiration behind this work.

We covered a large area (about 2.5 x 1.5 metres ) in hot melt vinyl capturing even the finest details in a flexible form that can be converted into a mould for casting glass . By using a simple cylindrical frame placed over this vinyl sheet we can cast any number of sections from the river bank , each one different from the last.

As a special edition some of the bowls even have the impressions of objects that were found on the site. It is possible to see clay pipes, bones , oyster shells, even a china doll’s head in amongst the stones and gravel of the riverbed. The glass flows over this texture forming a smooth, polished top and a natural wavy edge where it is frozen in motion. This flat bowl blank, once cast is cooled and cleaned then bent at a lower temperature into a profile mould.

The bowls come in a range of sizes, 16,25 and 35mm diameter and are made to order. Each one is totally unique.

For prices and to order email max@maxjacquard.com

I don’t like waste at the best of times. So when I started to think about the expensive Artista Glass that had been used to make the Green man I wondered if there was a more economic and ecologic way to create a glass patchwork.The idea of making a patchwork quilt or blanket is to combine scraps of discarded material to make something new and precious to the maker and to the person who receives it as a gift. It is a transformation of the best kind where hours of care and craftsmanship are taken to breathe new life into old discarded materials.

The connection between the patchwork fabric and the landscape also calls for a treatment in materials that is sensitive to the environment. It did not seem right that I should be using glass made just for the purpose of fusing in a kiln and produced at great expense for the art market.

I decided to try working with old wine bottles. Like most people I have a constant supply of empty wine and beer bottles that are washed and waiting to be taken down to the bottle dump. These became my raw material.

In order to convert them into a workable form I cut off the bottoms and cut the body in half. The cut sections were then placed on a flat mould in the kiln to flatten out. I reused the old patchwork blanket mould that served for the Albion green man figure, made from bits of knitted jumpers. This gave a feeling of landscape to the textures then imparted onto the bottles.

Of course the shapes reflect the original shapes of the half bottle and the base, I have tried wherever possible to keep these shapes as part of the design.The bottles are worked to fit into simple square compositions. They are drilled and then wired together with silver binding wire. The squares are then incorporated into the structure of the Quilt which is a frame of stainless steel.

The result is a fascinating mixture, part construction and part picture it reminds me of the cubist paintings by Ben Nicholson and constructions by Joseph Albers. There is also an echo of stained glass windows where the old glass having been broken is put back in a complete jumble of patterns and fragmented images. These windows I found in Hartpury Church in Gloucestershire have this character…

The ‘Quilt’ had its first showing at Quenington Fresh Air 2007 on the 16th June and is there till the beginning of July . The concept works as a screen, a window or as a hanging in front of a plain wall and can be adapted to a variety of sizes and designs depending on requirements. The possibilities for using bottles in this technique is almost endless!

Please email max@glassfroms.co.uk for prices and to discuss possible commissions.

The latest life sized human figure is a sleeping female form defined by the luxuriant folds of the sheet that covers her.

For this piece I wanted to get away from the self portrait and to express something of the tenderness that one feels towards a sleeping companion.

In this figure I have tried to capture a moment of incredible stillness and fragility yet a sort of revelation at the miracle of life. During the making of the piece I realized that the form also makes strong connections with the landscape and with classical sculpture.

in Feb 2007 I presented new work as part of the Connect7 Exhibition at the Studio Glass Gallery.

On show was a new version of the For My Lost Loves series. This time a wall mounted version with a row of fragile glass tissues pinned to a glass backing rather like butterfly specimens.

There are two new pieces in the Sleep series shown first last October at the Affordable Art Fair. Once again it’s a figure of a sleeping woman but this time more abstract and with greater emphasis on the ripples and movement in the fabric that covers her. In fact I have realized in this latest piece how strong is the connection between the figure and the landscape. Also there is a presence of the elements wind and water in the movement and lightness of the ripples that flow over the figure.

Some of the images from the lecture ‘The making of Sleep 2 and the connections between the Figure and the Landscape’ are represented on this site in a separate entry.”The Making of Sleep 2″

This huge cast glass screen weighing around 200kg was the result of a close collaboration between Max and Architect James Parritt of Parritt Leng Architects.

The idea was to create a large filter to the light entering the hallway of a spacious Victorian town house in Hampstead. The client wanted a key feature for his focal area that gave a sense of calmness and illumination to the whole apartment.

The first meeting between Artist and Architect took place on the bank of the Thames near Greenwich and this was to prove the inspiration for the final piece created by making a mould from the very bed of the river itself and including all kinds of fascinating artifacts collected from the immediate vicinity . The texture of the casting is actually a perfect negative of the texture of shingle and sand left by the river at low tide, the objects concealed within this texture reveal themselves to the viewer over time.

The piece really has a contemplative quality somewhat like a lunar landscape and is constantly changing with the light entering the hallway. At 2.3m tall by 1.6m wide and up to 35mm thick in places the slab is the largest cast by Glassforms in association with Les Leeson of Paragon Glass. The bespoke metal frame by Red House is supremely elegant and does justice to the optical clarity of the glass filter.

The full story of the making of this wonderful piece is told in a fully illustrated booklet ‘Thames Riverbed Crystallised‘ available for £10 plus P+P. Please contact max@maxjacquard.com to request a copy.

In Spring of 200 Glassforms completed a set of three sliding glass doors for a private house in Bangor, N.Ireland. They were all over 2 metres high and top hung on sliding clamp fittings. We were given a free hand to create three different designs that in some way connected to the site and the location.It was agreed with the client that we would create three slump textured panels in 10mm float. These would be drilled and toughened making them able to meet health and safety requirements for this type of situation.

For the first door we created a kind of map using a patchwork of
knitted textures taken from handmade Arran style jumpers and cardigans collected in the local charity shops. The area chosen for the map was the Aars Penisular with Bangor at the top and the Stranghorn Lough at the bottom.

The images show the patchwork map under construction and completed on the bench .

This detail shows the top hung fitting.

Below is the door in closed and open positions

In August this year and much to my surprise, my entry for the Bi Annual competition celebrating the best in British glass was chosen to win the first prize.

It was for me a complete contrast to my previous work – instead of large body forms assembled from many panels of slumped glass I presented an intimate grouping of cast glass tissues . Seemingly frozen in time after having been used and discarded the tissues appeared incredibly delicate. Poignant reminders perhaps of the emotion that created them the tissue forms reminded me initially of dried roses.

I was also inspired by reading an article about ‘The Maiden’s of Minsterley’ where garlands of flowers had been made from old wallpaper to commemorate girls betrothed to be married but who had somehow died before their wedding day. As a reflection of this precious fragility and in an attempt to capture the passing moment I developed a method of casting direct from the tissue. Each cast can only exist once and each tissue form is entirely different from the next.

The set of 16 tissues was presented on an austere black glass base and plinth mounted. I also produced a perspex case to protect the piece from dust but this was not used in the exhibition.
In making their choice the judges described the work as ‘a lyrical masterpiece, a deft blend of visual poetry, technical brilliance and deceptive simplicity’….. Wow!