Image: Poissons d'avril
Katharine ColemAn
Katharine’s work requires close collaboration with glassblowers Potter Morgan who blow her work to her design with her supervision. She engraves on clear lead crystal forms, overlaid with coloured glass. The optical properties of glass fascinate Katharine. The inspiration for her work is the beauty found in ordinary things, whether natural history or the modern urban landscape.
Katharine feels strongly that engraving on glass no longer needs to be traditional in style or content, though she prefers the precision and sensitivity of traditional wheel techniques. Occasionally she has enjoyed the challenge of collaborative work with other makers, including silversmiths. She sometimes makes graals and is also interested in taking simple prints from her engraved work. Even further afield, this year I have been successfully helping a bio-engineer at Imperial College London to investigate the interior of kidney stones, see Nature, 16 Feb 2017, article by surgeon Roger Kneebone .
Katharine's work has been exhibited widely in the UK and Europe, USA and Japan and can be seen in many public collections. Katharine teaches drill, point and wheel engraving on glass at Morley College, London and also at the Bild-Werk Frauenau Summer Academy in Germany and the Corning Museum Studio (provisional next date: June 2018). She was delighted to have been invited to demonstrate engraving on glass on the opening day of the GAS Conference 2016 and has been invited to lead the workshops celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the founding of the Rheinbach Glass School in Germany and the 50th Anniversary of the Rheinbach Glass Museum in 2018.