2013 150 mm x 230 mm Art glass - Fusing glass - Reusche and Glassline enamels Substrate MDF This is the work I most regret not keeping, the buyer saw it when I’d just completed the head and begged me to sell it to him – he said it was to be an inheritance piece for his son, what a wonderful compliment ... he commissioned my latest work of Macaroni Penguins for his daughter in London so she too would have a inheritance piece so that all softened the blow of not keeping the morepork for myself. The night I finished this mosaic there was a morepork calling right outside our back door which made me smile.
2020 250 mm x 300 mm Art glass - Fusing glass – Modeling Glass – Colors For Earth glass enamels and Color Concentrates. Substrate MDF Commissioned work. Reference photograph used with kind permission of Elston Hill. This is a new direction for me in that it’s the first time I’ve used Modeling Glass – the main penguin and the snow drifts are formed from this then painted with glass enamels and colour concentrates before firing. I love the added dimension the M.G. brings, I’m exploring a different brand of glass enamel which fires lower thus will bring even greater dimension to the M.G. as it will sinter less.
2016 320 mm x 220 mm Art glass - Fusing glass – Colors For Earth glass enamels and Color Concentrates & Reusche enamels. Kowhai stems and calyxes formed from CMC powder and powdered glass then fired. Substrate MDF Commissioned work. The buyer saw my morepork work, loved it and asked if I could make him a mosaic of a bellbird? – certainly I replied thinking great, after the intricacy of the morepork’s plumage a bellbird will be so easy – so wrong! ... the interstices showed up much more clearly in the plain olive green tesserae so if anything the bird was trickier. I was so touched to see the buyer, a 6’7” plumber, a true man’s man with tears in his eyes when I handed him his completed mosaic ... his pleasure when he saw the work meant much to me.
Cailleach Oidhche/Old Woman of the Night 2001 850 mm x 550 mm Art glass – Vitrail glass paint. Substrate MDF This mirror honours my MacGregor ancestry - the tawny owl "the cailleach oidhche/old woman of the night" was special to our Clan, the owl's call was used as a signal to clanfolk who were in hiding during the cruel 171 years of proscription. Loch Katrine in the clan lands is depicted at the top. "MacGregor despite them shall flourish forever".
2011 160 mm x 280 mm Art glass – Vitrail glass paint. Substrate slabbed serpentine rock This mosaic was given as a koha in thanks to a talented jade carver in Hokitika who slabbed several lovely serpentine boulders for me that I found in the Kokatahi River just up the road from our home, serpentine is a beautiful rock which often lies in close proximity to pounamu
2007 800 mm x 530 mm Art glass – Fusing glass - formed and fired fused glass grapes - Glassline enamel paint – glass frit. Substrate MDF I made this mosaic as we’d come home from Australia to look at a property for sale in the wine growing region of Marlborough - I thought I would use it to gauge reaction to my work in any local gallery I found there ... I’d uncovered it in the motel room in Blenheim to show my niece (who lived in the Wairau Valley nearby) when the owner of the motel popped in to deliver fresh towels – she saw it and immediately bought it! ... it turned out that she also had a gift gallery overlooking the very spot this mosaic depicted ... so the reaction was good! We didn’t buy the property, circumstances happily lead us to the beautiful West Coast instead and for that I’m very grateful.
Vicky Fletcher
After spending 35 homesick years in Australia I have at last returned to the Coast and am seeing our lovely region with heightened appreciation and fresh eyes after those long hot dry years away – inspiration is everywhere and now I fully grasp the beautiful Maori concept of turangawaewae for Westland truly is “the place where I stand” (tūranga (standing place), waewae (feet) tūrangawaewae are places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our home.)
I started working in glass 20 years ago and after several years of the precise work needed in leadlight and copperfoil pieces I tried mosaics and loved the freedom of it.
Lately I’ve been exploring kiln fused glass enamel techniques which have enabled me to create painted focal points for my mosaics …. even more exciting is the advent of Lois Manno’s Modeling Glass coming onto the market at last. I think I was as excited as Lois about her medium as it feels like a real “game changer” in that at last the glass artist has the same flexibility of material that the ceramicist does – it is in effect glass clay (powdered glass is mixed with Lois’ medium to form a smooth malleable “clay”). My latest work of Macaroni Penguins was the first time I used the Modeling Glass and I’m excited at it’s wonderful possibilities – it was a steep learning curve but worth every minute of the challenge.
I am fortunate indeed that each work I make leads to more commissions, I have in the past attempted to gather a body of work with which to approach a gallery but each time someone buys it so I’m continuing to work happily in my home studio free from constraints and pressures and with the spectacular Southern Alps and lush Westland native bush just 3 kms from my studio windows continuing to inspire me.
Commissions are welcome.
Kokatahi Valley, Westland
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Wayne Goldsack
