By Pauline Neville
I met Stephanie as a regular maker, at The Liverpool Makers Bazaar where she exhibits and sells her plethora of fabulous and unique glass items, alongside framed pieces.
She feels it’s an absolute joy to have people visit her there and is usually surrounded by entranced children who are understandably drawn to her world of tiny colourful creatures and seemingly suspended galaxies.
To chat for this piece, Stephanie suggested we meet at her fabulous glass workshop in an industrial estate in Garston, on the banks of the Mersey. It is a magical place somewhere between an industrial laboratory and one of the most interesting art exhibitions I’ve ever seen. A neon heart pulses silently on its wooden plinth, multicoloured glass rods nestle in their wooden cubbyholes awaiting selection and mysterious machines wait quietly for Stephanie to kick them into life.
Her passion for her art is apparent when from the start she enthuses, “People never forget seeing glass melting in real life for the first time, it stays with them always… it is a profound honour to be able to share this with them.”
She does this by offering 3 hour beginners glass blowing experiences. Unusually, for this medium, they are very hands on which Stephanie believes allows her students to really get to know the material. Reviews of her courses and repeat bookings would seem to bear this out. Courses can be booked via AirBnB experiences or feel free to contact her directly on any of the methods given at the end of the article.
Stephanie is driven to educate especially young people, as scientific glassblowing is a red listed heritage craft and predicted to become extinct within the next two generations.
Previous roles which led her to this point have always erred on the side of creativity. She began with a BA in Performing Arts, resulting in her running a Liverpool Arts Associations Arena Art & Design Association. She describes this period as satisfying but unprofitable.
But, when 12 years ago, she attended a training course on neon sign making, she was hooked. The frustrating thing was that having discovered her ideal medium in glass she couldn’t find anywhere to apprentice, nor any further training she could undertake. Persevering, she discovered another week long course in neon sign making, held at a Paris technical college the Lycée Dorian.
Always up for a challenge, she applied and found herself making neon signs by day and as a group the students wandered the streets of Paris at night admiring the many neon signs already in situ. Often stopping outside busy restaurants to discuss the merits of a particular sign to the bewilderment of the diners inches away from them on the other side of the restaurant window.
Through the Lycée Dorian, she was recommended to the renowned master scientific glass blower Paul Pinnet, then living in Warrington and running the scientific glassblowing workshop at The Heath in Runcorn’s chemical industry.
Paul offered her a coffee and a look round his workshop and she found herself being invited to become his apprentice. She trained with and worked alongside Paul for 2 years until his retirement. Stephanie recalls fondly how he insisted that he was an engineer whilst creating beautiful art in the form of tiny glass animals often within animals, as practice pieces.
“Even the contents of the bins were beautiful” she told me, “containing as they did many fragments of coloured glass and rejected glass creatures that didn’t meet Paul’s exacting standards. If you had photographed the contents of those bins and blown it up it would have been fabulous abstract art in itself!”
Together they worked as scientific glass blowers producing all manner of test tubes and vessels to exact scale plans accurate to within 1 mm. Once Paul left for the day Stephanie was permitted to remain and began experimenting herself, creating increasingly artistic pieces. Menageries of tiny mythical glass creatures to start but gradually developing her unique signature style. She is still developing and experimenting with form and light. She says “I just like making little things, tiny pieces of joy”. Stephanie puts her success down to wanting to practice stating that glassblowing is a calling rather than a profession.
Her range of memorial glass came into being when she was experimenting with different materials and testing what could tolerate the temperatures needed to create the glass. As her practice progressed she developed the idea that ash from loved ones could be housed in beautiful memorial glass art. These pieces are completely unique and are a collaboration with the bereaved to ensure that the finished item expresses the personality of the lost family member.
In 2014 Steph acquired her glass workshop. To run this she says that she needs to be part gas fitter, part electrician all alongside maintaining the creative drive.
I was lucky enough to have Stephanie give me an interesting and informative demonstration of one of her glass making techniques, her detailed knowledge of the subject and passion once more evident. Aside from being mesmerising, it was interesting to witness where science becomes art and I was reminded that Einstein said “Creativity is intelligence at play.” I would recommend the experience whole heartedly.
Stephanie may be contacted by email; merseyglassworks@gmail.com and via her website; www.merseyglassworks.co.uk.
You can also chat to Stephanie by phone on 07870738399, or better yet in person at the Liverpool Makers Bazaar next event on Sunday 18 June. We hope to see you there.