Women at Work: Annette Blair

Posted on 14 November, 2019

Of all artisans, glass artists are perhaps some of the most mysterious. 

After all, the art of turning glass from solid to liquid and then shaping, moulding and blowing it into perfect formations seems too far beyond the realm of possibility.

That is, unless you’re someone like Annette Blair—who makes glass art look easy.

Ahead of the CBR Sport Awards 2019, we caught up with Annette to chat craft, the challenges of working with glass and how she created the bespoke awards that will be handed out to Canberra’s top sportspeople come 29 November.

Tell us about your career so far—what drew you to glass in the first place?

I’ve always loved making things, and art was my favourite subject in high school. When I saw glassblowing for the first time at the ANU Open Day in 2000, I knew that was what I wanted to do and I started the following year.

There was the initial aspect of being able to create things with my hands, but I was really drawn in by the craftsmanship and the fire.

It was obvious that glassblowing required a lot of skill and years of practice to be able to shape molten glass using various tools as an extension of your hand.

After completing my degree with honours at the ANU I moved to Adelaide to undertake a two-year associate training program in glass at The Jam Factory to further develop my skills.

In 2008 I returned to Canberra as the Canberra Glassworks had just opened. As well as being a wonderful cultural institution, it is a state of the art facility that local glassworkers can hire to produce their work in glass.

My practice today is based between the Hotshop at the Glassworks and my home studio in Burra. Most of my time is split between making my own work and helping other artists and designers realise their ideas in hot glass by fabricating work for them.

I also teach glass blowing, and glass painting techniques both here, and overseas. My own work includes one-off exhibition pieces, designing and producing various homewares as well as the production of commissions such as this one for the CBR Sport Awards.

Where did you hone your craft?

As a student, I was in the hot shop practising as much as I could, I learnt a lot by helping the more senior students with their projects, little things that I picked up back then I still think about and use in my practice today.

Four years at uni isn’t very long when you’re learning to blow glass, which is why I moved to Adelaide. The Jam Factory is world-renowned for its training program and you learn by making lots of glass, all day, every day.

After the two years, I started my own business as an independent maker and have been working for myself ever since.

Occasionally I participate in workshops from local and international artists with specialist skills that I’d like to learn but for the most part, I feel like I learn something new every time I’m in the workshop.

Because of the varied aspects of my practice and the many different things I am asked to fabricate, it’s constantly expanding my skill set.

What would you describe as your distinctive style when it comes to your pieces?

I have quite a broad range of homewares that I have made/still have in production and I would say that the common thread in all of them is that I try to capture the fluid nature of working with hot glass.

I like to let the glass do what it wants to do a little bit, and not force it too much into a set of callipers or a preconceived form, otherwise, it can look a little tortured.

This is not always the way I work with my exhibition work where I will try and make perfect replicas of household items in glass using all of the callipers I can find.

These works combine painterly processes with technically challenging forms which is very time consuming and laborious but satisfying at the same time.

What are some of the biggest challenges and advantages of working with glass?

Glass is a pretty magical material to work with. The possibilities for what you can do with glass are endless, it can be sculptural or functional and anywhere in between, even just within the local Canberra glass community—it’s pretty amazing to see the versatility of the material.

Probably the most obvious challenge we face as glassmakers is that its breaks. Less now that I have been practising for almost 20 years, but it still breaks and it can be after I have spent 20 minutes working on it or 20 hours on a more complex piece.

Handmade glass is expensive to produce, from buying the materials to renting a facility, paying skilled assistants, and that is all before sales commissions. It is challenging to sell pieces for what they are worth in order to continue making and to pay the rent.

Environmental concerns is another big challenge, [I have] big dreams of a primarily solar-powered hotshop at home. For now, I try to focus on only making objects which will provide use and joy for people for a long time, working efficiently and minimising my waste.

How did you go about creating a bespoke award for the CBR Sport Awards?

Just as I do with any new commission, we discussed the brief, the budget and then I sat down and drew out some ideas. It was agreed that the pieces should be beautiful objects on their own and not necessarily look like a ‘trophy.’

After some initial prototyping, we settled on the current design. When I first looked at the branding of the awards, I knew I had to use gold leaf.

I buy small sheets of 23-carat gold which I can apply to a hot bubble of glass, when the bubble expands it breaks apart the leaf and creates really beautiful patterns within the glass which is so vivid against the black inside.

Each award is completely unique in its decoration and subtly different in form, this is the beauty of handmade.

What does it mean to create these pieces?

Creating these awards for the fourth year now means a lot as it shows that other people place as much value in handcrafted objects as us makers do and they appreciate the effort, years of training and passion that goes into every piece.

I enjoy the process of working on commissions like this one as I feel like all of my experiences with the material inform the design process while at the same time, the production of the objects feeds back into my practice as it expands my repertoire.

I have been fortunate to hear from several of the award recipients over the years and they have all been thrilled to be presented with something unique and beautiful.

Photography: Adam McGrath