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Hi! I am a Dutch artist and aspiring glassblower. My aim is to create kinetic glasswork. This is my progress.

There is a lot to be learned.
As Bernard Bolas describes in A Handbook of Laboratory Glass-Blowing “Until the student can turn a tube steadily without thinking about it, real progress in glassblowing is impossible”.

MADE POSSIBLE BY:

Starting grant 'Research Scientific Glassblowing'
Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie

Stipendium for Emerging Artists 2020-2021
Mondriaan Fund

[motive] I wrote a short text (read it to your left) in which I discuss the interaction between me and my work. How I have come to see this more and more like a performance, in which the machine is the performer and I the assistant. I want to push the performance even more by replacing parts with an even more fragile material: glass.

THE STEAM GLASS ENGINE
a poem by William Somers
(19th-century )

The world in its wisdom, has long stood aghast,
Supposing each step in its progress the last,
But still ’tis advancing by steady degrees,
‘Till we ask in amazement, when will wonders cease?
When will wonders cease, we may justly enquire,
When we see a Glass Engine, complete and entire,
In fine working order, from boiler to beam,
And working away under full head of steam.
Mechanics, and artisans, here may engage,
To study this exquisite work of the age,
Surpassing all others in wonder and skill,
And as ages roll by, ’twill a wonder be still.
An Engine of Glass! why, that can never be,
E’en in this wond’rous age of the world’s history,
Incredulity starts, in most utter surprise,
We can hardly believe the plain sight of our eyes;
But there it now stands in its pearly array,
The greatest achievement of this latter day,
Its parts all adjusted, by magical skill,
With all the minutia of whistle and bell.
Its joints, and its gearings, are finished with care,
No friction occurs, and not even a jar;
And when the hot steam is sent coursing its veins,
Like a war horse it pants to break loose from the reins.
An engine, transparent, instructive, and new,
Like a real thing of life with its vitals in view,
The steam from the boilers sends life to the heart,
And life it goes bounding throughout every part.
Then, hail to the progress of science and skill,
From whose storehouse such wonders are forthcoming still;
The palm we will render with pleasure and hope,
To this scientific Bohemian Troupe.

Glassworkers promoted the engines heavily in their advertisements, giving them fanciful names like Fairy Queen, Excelsior, Columbia, and the Crystal Gem. They held poetry competitions and gave prizes to those who submitted the best verse.

Nortel Minor burner








Refurbished Devilbliss Oxygengenerator

Desk with a custom extended worksheet of fire retardant MDF and stainless worksheet 60x40

Active Air 12 inch In-Line Fan 969 CFM.






Lampworking tool kit from Mountain Glass

Some homemade tools

Resting on a self-designed scaffolding tubes construction. I designed the frame in such a way that the extraction is in direct line with the burner at an angle of 45 degrees.

Surface mix burner. A surface mix burner keeps the fuel gas separate from the oxygen (or air) until both gases have left the torch. The advantage of this is that the flame is very quiet, the shape and nature of the flame can also be adjusted more.

such as; metal wire holders with a concrete base for supporting longer pipes and beams with holes where I can put glass rods and the like.

Practicing bending without bending flat

summer 2020 practicing borosilicate on a propane torch

Trying to pull points on the propane torch is quite difficult. The glass does not get hot enough and preheating does not give an even stretch.

Tried blowing a big bubble by connecting multiple smaller bubbles. As a result, played around with making "clouds".

My fascination with printing devices started during my Illustration study. I was looking for a way to reanimate the dull repetition of production. My first device Printer 1.0, is an analog printing machine that could produce an endless pattern. A homage to tactile devices. Producing a print was the main goal. Since then the machine has moved to the foreground. The print is no longer the intended goal but confirms the machine. Reawaken and Test Installation Cognizant are two kinetic printing installations that I developed with the machine in mind. Although both works produce abstract prints on paper, they are primarily visualizations of my quest for imagination and beauty around technology.

After graduating, I have shown my work a lot, including at the Dutch Design Week (Eindhoven), the International Film Festival (Rotterdam), and the Paratext at my residency in Barcelona. During these specific exhibitions, I have experienced the value of my presence next to the installation. During the Dutch Design Week, several motors broke. Instead of doing “maintenance” after closing time, I decided to do the repairs for the public. This decision has led to reflection on my presence and the resulting actions required for the installation to function. By turning on the work, some elements or gears jump. These vulnerabilities cannot be resolved by the machine itself. In itself it is helpless.

I have increasingly come to see the interaction between me and the work as a performance, in which the machine is the performer and I the assistant. As a person, I am not the lead act because the performative actions do not necessarily have to be performed by me. For the International Film Festival, I wrote instructions so that someone else could switch on and correct Testinstallation Cognizant. The instructions felt like a poem that became part of my work.

My print installations started with a focus on the print. Reawaken and Testinstallation Cognizant shifted the focus to the machine, with the print confirming the machine. With my new steps, the machine develops into a performer and the print into a memento of performance.

Practicing soft glass on a propane torch, making beads. Burner set-up courtesy of Iris Roskam.

Practicing borosilicate on a propane torch.