I recently visited the Crafts Council’s touring exhibition ‘Breath Taking: Revealing a New Wave in British Glass Blowing’ at Bilston Craft Centre. Given the resurgence of interest in the value of making and the handmade, I was keen to find out more about contemporary UK makers and designers working in this practice that’s over 500 years old.  The exhibition includes new commissions as well as pieces from the Crafts Council’s permanent collection by 22 UK-based makers and designers and successfully gives the impression of an area of craft that is very much still alive and kicking.

The exhibition gives an insight into the process of glass blowing, as well as a sense of the breadth of conceptual ideas being explored and the engagement with contemporary issues. The 5-minute commissioned film by Federico Urdaneta was particularly mesmerizing to watch - Urdaneta spent a day with Elaine Sheldon and Dominic Cooney in their converted Methodist Chapel in Staffordshire which is both their home and workshop. The film beautifully captures the rhythm and collaboration in glass blowing and the endless chance and manipulation within the practice. Sheldon’s piece on show, Atelier, is also one of the most intriguing works in the exhibition: a lamp sits on an old wooden table but any sense of familiarity with these objects is soon disrupted as squashed glass appears to ooze from the lamp as it takes on a life of its own.

Unsurprisingly the theme of life/breath is explored across pieces in the show from Shelley James’ ‘Intuition’ inspired by the human eye, Jessica Lloyd-Jones’ anthropomorphic forms in ‘Deflated vessel’ to Kate Williams’ ‘In the same breath’ – where a glass trombone makes visible the users breath. There are also references to history, collections and narratives: Louis Thompson’s series of laboratory glassware and James Maskrey’s ‘Cook’s Eggs’ – featuring jars containing the imagined findings from Cook’s travels to New Zealand with pickled saltwater crocodile eggs being the most memorable…

The exhibition is now closed at Bilston, but you can catch it elsewhere when it commences an 18-month tour of UK venues.