Kiln Sculpture ‘Grace’ by Nancy Farrington

Cast glass kiln sculpture entitled ‘Grace’ by textile and glass artist Nancy Farrington.

Soft fabrics are pleated, smocked and woven, and then this design is then transposed onto solid glass.

Luxurious designs that would not look out of place in a museum, let alone a luxury contemporary space.

Rich in the long and illustrious history of women and clothes making.

Kiln Sculpture – Artist

Glass artist Nancy Farrington explores the essence of glass through its materiality. She uses the lens of her background in textiles to explore how fabric techniques such as gathering and smocking can be transposed onto glass.

Using kiln casting as her go-to means of exploration, Nancy has developed a series of processes that have enabled her to translate the solidity of glass into the subtler nuances, usually found in the portfolio of a clothes designer.

Folds and stitching, pleating and weaving all find their way into Nancy’s work

Nancy takes items more usually found in the haberdashers and plies her magic on glass to create a bridge between the two. Exploring their mutual oppositions as well as where there is room for interplay between them.

Where you find a natural drape in a fabric, this has to be scored onto rock-hard glass during the casting process. No easy feat by any means.

This exploration of the two media and the strategies she has created to bridge the chasm between the two of them has led to the creation of a number of exciting glass sculptures.

Her journey through glass fabric has been driven through a range of aesthetic realms, including geology, human forms and confectionery.

There is a deep culture and long history behind her work that covers themes of women going out to the factories as part of the industrial revolution, as well as women making clothes since the earliest of times. It is a practice that is steeped in ancestral knowledge.

The glass itself also goes on a long voyage, from the waxed model of the fabric to the mould, before finally being placed in the kiln and turned into the finished glass piece. At each stage, the form before is destroyed to create the next stage in the journey.

The latest Nancy Farrington Glass collection, entitled ‘Sugar and Spice’, explores the interplay between all these elements, ‘a reimagining [of] the role of decorative stitch within the contemporary landscape.’

Artist Statement about the making process: 

Each piece begins with a piece of fabric, which I hand-stitch into various smocking samples. I then make a mould from these using my own techniques, which then gets fired in the kiln. After firing, each piece is sandblasted or acid polished and cut to shape before being ground by hand using silicon carbide powders. I then use a flat lap machine to polish the pieces one side at a time, revealing and magnifying the textures of the fabric within. 

Research into the material connotations of vintage underwear, interiors, makeup and upholstery has informed a nostalgic colour palette of dusty nudes, chartreuse and pink, inspired by the tactile satins, silks and velvets of times gone by. The material of glass gives a new perspective to stitched textiles that would otherwise go unseen, as the polished facets offer a view into the negative space of the folds from the inside out.