Atlantean Series

I often have vivid dreams of Lemuria or Atlantis and wake in the morning and ponder is it myth or real? To me Lemuria was soul and Atlantis was mind. This series is about reconnecting with past energies and linking them to the present day.

There is an ancient energy (icons) as the ‘base' of my pieces unfolding, and reaching upwards to spirit and the intertwining of all that sacred knowledge in the lip wrap. Soft blues and clear ( which when frosted turns to white) evoke emotions and trigger past life reflections of long forgotten highly advanced civilisations.

The fragileness of the ‘window' they lived in, reminds us of the fine line we tread in our own turbulent times. They bring a feeling of not only past antiquity but a message of peace and love when we need it most.

I believe that every piece of whatever series I make is for a certain individual person, and it is their own personal odyssey to seek and find that piece made especially for them. Because of my dreams I get tremendous joy out of making this series for the seeker.

Black Opal Series

This series came about when I was working using some Opal on a commission with Roger. I also use Opal pieces to adorn some of my Tribal vessels.
One day while I was blowing in the Studio, I had some darker Opal laid out on the bench and the light was playing with it. I went over and looked at them on the bench, then made a few vases and bottles. When they were annealed and out of the Kiln, the one I was drawn to most was the black one with faint purple splattering through it. When placed directly under a down light it came alive and looked just like a type of opal. So I blew a vessel using the same techniques and the 'Black Opal' was created.
When you look straight at it , they appear dark, and then just like real opal - when you catch the light at the right angle it comes alive.
For me this series is perfectly named.

The glass didgeridoo came to me once again from a dream.
A wise old tribal man sat and spoke with me and told me how I was to make it and the colours to use.
It was not exactly an easy feat to achieve. These are a metre or longer glass didgeridoos that are fully playable and resonate at a great volume than timber. They are extremely difficult to make because of the length of them , the complexity of the skill level and having to be constantly kept hot with hand held gas burners from all angles at the critical stage.
The message they bring is one of ancient wisdom and healing through the power of music.
Sound enters into our mind via the ears and resonates within our soul. This ancient and ceremonial instrument revered within indigenous culture now meets the new age and is blown into glass vibrating at a high level of consciousness.
It is a merging of the old and the new via harmonics, that has not been achieved before.
Reconciliation thus emerges in a different format.
My first Glass 'didg' I gave to Adrian Ross on the night of the Unearthed Exhibition.
Adrian is an International Artist who has opened the Paralympics playing his Didgeridoos.
He was deeply moved by my gift to him and later in the evening said to me 'this is such a special gift, in the act of giving from the heart you will now receive from the universe". Which I got goosebumps from. A few short weeks later an entrepreneur who I had never met before, purchased 65 of my pieces !

Enchanted Forest Series

The Enchanted Forest series invite you to mentally or even better physically, go out into the forest and smell the fresh air, feel the cool, clean stillness and take a walk with Mother Nature.

Just as in ‘Findhorn' when a barren waste land was turned into a flourishing garden,so this series is about nature spirits and new growth. They impart a mystical magic of glass vines and flowers weaving through and around each piece.

When ever I am a bit tired or drained I try to go down to my garden and it helps to invigorate me with all that it is - the flowers, shrubs and palms growing we put in last year. I watch the new born baby frog tadpoles swimming as miniscule wonky torpedos in the pond, the wind caresses my face and I smell the first hint of Spring Jasmine. Always changing and always to me enchanting.  

The Australian outback to me, is like nowhere else on earth.
The colours of the landscape are so rich and changing that people come from around the world to see for themselves.
To our indigenous people it is a sacred land full of ancestral spirits, and dreamtime legends. They have a story for every act of creation, how it began, and to what it unfolded into as the landscape today.
Every one of my Outback Series tells a different story - some are more fire red that are symbolic to the heat and red earth. Others are more yellow with brown being the sand hills, with dry river beads, or undulating hills. The rainbow serpent which is featured in dreamtime stories is always present in my pieces in the sinuous swirls and twists of the glass work. The blue highlights are the vividness of the bluest skies imaginable.

This to me is my outback and its colours of life.   

 

Outback Sunset Series

The outback is a truly amazing place.
There is no neon lights or fast food stores. It's just you and nature - period.
It is a land of intense beauty and unforgiving harshness all at once. Because of where it is situated in the middle of Australia you get these unbelievable sunsets from the heat of the day that are a mass of swirling colours, and to an artist about as good as it gets.
There is this fire ball of a sun going down over a timeless land as it has done for millions of years, every time at days end, but everyone is a unique and different setting in the skies palette.
The black wrought iron that surrounds a lot of these pieces is symbolic of life and death in this arid landscape and it creates a symbolic aura to these pieces.
Any living thing that finds themselves out there without water or shelter will soon perish. The rigid steel work flowing around the glass is the unforgiving reality of outback life.
Sun charred, black and stiff - this is the perimeter within which all life exists and the threshold not to cross.
That is why it skirts the outside of the glass, sometimes in 2 or 3 encircling twists but never touches its fragileness.
This to me is like life's cat and mouse game it plays with the outback, and one which I am pleased with the way it is artistically represented in the Sunset series.

Pebble Creek Series

Using the neutral shades and tones of cream, beige, white, brown, black and grey, Pebble Creek is a distinct collection of goblets, bowls and vases created by Tina and her glass blowing team at the Sunshine Coast Hot Glass Studio in Yandina. Pebble Creek offers a new dimension to her award-winning glass artworks and Tina says she was inspired by the rocky creek beds, particularly in the Daintree Rainforest area of far north Queensland.
"This series reflects the sensation of meandering through the forest and the amazing colours and texture of rocks. Each pebble has its own personal character; it's taken so long to form its shape and has developed from a particular place and time in evolution."

Working with glass dates back to over 5,000 years. This series represents iconic items related to humanities earliest existence and millenniums past. The Nautilus and its ancestors are from ½ billion years ago.Their spiral unfoldment mirrors mankinds journey in evolution.

Survival - shelter and food , were primary, basic instics. My sculptures in the Primordial series echo this. Old horns and authentic 100 year old posts are direct links to this time. Animal bones and horns were later used for re hunting, ceremonies and even art subjects on cave walls.

The ancient bottles I make are indicative of found archaeological treasures, unearthed from the cobwebs of time. Each piece is purposefully made, the glass and timber is then aged to impart an intriguing aura of a distant civilization. We live in ultra modern hi tech times and a Primordial piece in our contemporary homes helps to ‘ground' from busy lives.

These are all about the shell and the rolling waves. They are the unfolding of a Nautilus type base around a clear ball or bubble, that opens into a wide top. Some have a clear ribbing along the outside edge, others go shooting up to the top.
Whenever I have an Exhibition I make a special new series for the opening to commemorate it in my portfolio. These were made for the Veronica George Gallery in Armadale, Melbourne.
The Exhibition was titled 'The Bold and the Beautiful'.This selection of work is from the bold and represents a more masculine form.The beautiful can be seen at the start of the Enchanted Forest Series and is purely feminine.  

The Sea Life Series was inevitable.
Whenever I can sneak a holiday, I love to dive with the fish and coral and be in their world for a little while. I like to sit on the bottom and be very still and just observe the passing parade. It is a fascinating place to be and I find it invigorates my soul. Watching the clown fish weaving in and out of the flowing anemones, the colours of the coral and the way everything interacts effortless with each other.
I started testing this series in 1999. We had no reference to go off, and because I was using hot on hot technique we had a lot of heartaches, tears and major financial costs involved to perfect it. With steadfast perseverance we nailed the process and this is my most acclaimed series. I perfected the process just in time for Raglan Gallery to take my Sea Life to SOFA. I represented Australia at SOFA, Chicago, USA in 2001 and it is still one of my proudest moments. It takes my whole team of 4 to pull these off over several non stop hours. My right hand man - Matty, used to be a professional fisherman and he is great at doing the fish. We weave the sea life parts into the glass, building up the layers a bit at a time, repetitively going in an out of the furnace every 15 seconds over how ever many hours needed.
It is a highly taxing and mentally demanding time because as it build's up it gets heavier, the error for mistakes increases and we have to keep swapping gaffers around as arms get tired.
I evaluate them as I make them and add a touch here, another coral or fish piece or a tweak there and when I think that piece is finished and I am happy with it, they are put in the annealing kiln for 2 days.
It is always exciting and with held breath that the kiln door is opened when cold, and you see the finished result.
The Sea Life Series are about the wonder of the underwater world and how it transforms and mesmerizes me. I work purely from my memory without photo's and wish to impart to the viewer a window of life into a watery world.

Solar Flare Series

This is a fairly self explanatory style.
The Australian sun is so intense, magnified in the outback areas - it reminds me of the glass furnace we use to make our alchemy happen.
Strong Reds and Blacks are predominant in these pieces.
I wanted the feeling of hot to touch and flare ups of flickering flames bursting through the blazing red. They are twisting and reaching outwards just like solar flare radiating from the suns surface.
These are strong, more masculine pieces and make bold statements wherever they are placed on display.

Soul Essence Series

I felt a need for my feminine energy to be expressed via this Series.
I wanted to express elegant shapes and soft flowing colours using wispy, wind blown white to be the clouds with two tone leaves supporting them as does mother nature.
They have an etherical quality about them and also one of opulence which is exactly the way I wished them to be.
I was doing an Exhibition at the Palazzo Versace on the Gold Coast, and made these pieces specifically for that display. They looked truly beautiful in the soft light of the Exhibition room, where it was choreographed to be a magical experience for the viewer.
They went hand in hand with this spectacular hotel and multiple collectors of mine have one or more of them in their homes.

Sunrise Series

The Sunrise series was created from the face of disaster.

The first Tsunami that devasted Indonesia in 2004 created a mass consciousness of support. I remember sitting watching the sunrise and all its beautiful colours starting a new day and felt I had to do something to help those suffering. I went to the studio and blew the colours I had seen in the mornings Sunrise and named the series after it.

I was then part of a team as was countless others who gave of their time and money around the world, in setting up a charity dinner in aid of the Tsunami survivors and gave a Sunrise piece to be auctioned. We raised over $7,000 that night. The Sunrise represents that in the face of adversity there is always hope. No matter how devastating our lives get thrown into, there is always help, support and love from others to draw on. No matter how black and cold the night may be, the sun always rises bringing warmth and life to our hearts, the sunrise is a new day dawning.

To date this has been one of my most popular series sought by collectors from the many Galleries representing my work.

Sundusk Series

The "Sundusk" Series reflects the glorious sunsets that we experience here in Australia
and was inspired by Tina's living in the Blackall ranges on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Tina says “ I am very excited about my new work as it records – Living, doing and making.
Rejoining of the collective unconscious, a potent repository of meaning and experience.
I hope you will sense and share the depth of love and feeling that we put into each creation.”

It is Tina Coopers ability to enter the realm of the unconscious which makes her work so
incredibly unique – Life passionately observed, scrutinized and recorded ensures our
immortality is captured within the vessels.

Tribal Goddess Series

Females from tribes around the world have often suffered suppression of spirit through centuries of humanity. My Goddess series is about recognising and showcasing their power.

The hole represents all females, birth and rebirth. They are all vessels (some with attitude!) for the storing of sacred volume. Reservoirs of wisdom, survival and new life.

They stand tall and upright, without dominating or being dominated. They simply are goddess pieces - powerful talismans each and every one of them to honour women globally.

Surprisingly quite a few men find they are connected, or drawn to them - the first time they see them in my Gallery. I, as a woman, have a strong emotional bond with each individual piece I blow.

Tribal Tribute Series

The start of the Tribal Tribute series began on the auspicious night of the Maroochydore Art Exhibition in 1999. This is when I met the indigenous lady - Nuuna. We both attained first prize in our relevant sections and had a mutual respect for each others work. We shared our past experiences and talked of reconciliation. Our journey, as they say - ‘and so it begins'.

Our first collaborative piece called "Womens Business" was exhibited at the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island Awards at Canberra in the year 2000. Each piece dances with a creative reconciliation energy or life force of its own.

I have now met some amazingingly talented indigenous artists who are adorning and embellishing the Tribal Tribute Series. Peter "Murray" Mulchay and Sue "Macca" McPherson's hand painted additions to my glass work is to be seen to be believed.

The vessels honour the past tribes as our teachers, the present as our creations and the future as our inspiration. We now stand at the crossroads and together we we can heal the broken, unspoken laws of nature. When we honour Spirit Earth peace will live in our hearts again.

Each one of my Tribal Tributes are strong and meaningful pieces. They stand on their own as silent sentinels empowered with great strength and wisdom.

Melt Series

Bitten by the Goddess of beautiful molten glass, Tina Cooper joined hands with Sue McPherson to create beautiful glass works that reflect the coming together of two cultures. Displaying incredible detail and craftsmanship along with conceptual ideas, Tina and Sue are at the very forefront of hot glass art that blurs the lines between contemporary and indigenous designs. Sue hopes her traditional indigenous art that is apparent on her and Tina's works will act as a message stick for the younger generations, carrying the art and culture of her people through time on these timeless works of art. 

 

Fab Series

From bright colourful combos to coffee and cream swirls of bold colour, the Fab series is engineered in a way to create an oblong, fabulous and funky approach to a bowl

Unearthed Series

This was a great and fun collaborative piece the 3 of us worked on.
Roger and I took a drive one day up into the foothills of the Sunshine Coast to one of his timber suppliers and found this old and weathered Red Cedar Stump. It was not a work of art by any means and covered in dirt and mould. Stuff like that never worries him as he knows the beauty of the timber that is underneath.
Then myself, Roger and Graeme Higgins (blacksmith) began. It was turned upside down, water blasted, chainsawed and carved. I blew some very large orange 'fungus' that were fitted into the stump. The whole sculpture was then taken to Graeme's workshop where he worked his magic bending steel like modelling clay in and around the stump and glass.
Back to Rogers for fine tuning and a spray job and Unearthed was born.
It was revealed to the public for the first time at The Edge in Montville and shortly after was sold to a New Zealand businessman for his waterfront home in Spain.
Roger was so moved with it, as he loves his timber, he wrote a poem about it and read it out on the opening night which touched all who heard it.

"I was a seed blown on the winds of chance.
I came from a great grandfather of a cedar that stood long before the white man ever walked these shores.
I nestled feather soft into forest undergrowth, moist and giver of life.
I grew slowly.
My fragile limbs reached ever skyward, and grew stronger with the passing seasons.
Countless birds nestled and raised their young in my ever broadening limbs.
The months and years were but the days of my youth.
Deadly axe blows echoed through out the valley heralding the Cedar Cutters had come, and when they left - my body went with them.
I was a stump, naked and baking in the sun, and slowly I started to return to the very ground that first gave me life.
But the fickle winds of chance would blow my way once more.
A new generation would find me, hands that worked with love would transform me.
With mallet and chisel the shavings fell, out of the earth metal was hammered to fit my shape, and from breath of fire glass was blown - my spirit now lived again."

Unearthed is about the beauty that lies in old timber and how with carefully working and enhancing using mixed media, the timber, steel and glass give birth to a new period in that trees life, that to many may seem only fit for firewood.