From Pipe Cleaners to Fused Glass: A Creative Journey

It probably all started with Tony Hart and Valerie Singleton.

Back in the 1960s, children’s TV was still finding its feet. But to a child watching alone after school, programmes like Blue Peter and Take Hart offered a window into a wonderfully creative world. I was hooked. The only catch? I never quite had all the right supplies to follow along with the projects.

Thankfully, my mum—bless her—had a way of fuelling that spark. One Christmas, she gifted me two treasures: My Bumper Book of Things to Do and My Fun-To-Cook Book. I would flip through the pages with excitement, hunting for anything I could make using the meagre resources at home. The kitchen table became my studio, and the possibilities felt endless.

One of my projects involved making a paper cone, filling it with table salt, and swinging it on a piece of string over a large piece of card to create a beautiful geometric pattern—kind of like a spirograph but with more potential for disaster. Unfortunately, my artistic vision was thwarted by the lack of a large piece of card, so I decided to go rogue and do it over the kitchen table. As I swung the cone, I watched in horror as the salt grains bounced off the smooth Formica table and ended up scattered all over the floor! When my mum came home from work, she found herself sliding across the kitchen floor like a puck on ice. She was a rather large lady, I had never seen her move that fast!

Fast forward five or six decades and I’ve tried my hand at more hobbies than I can count: mosaic making, machine knitting, silver metal clay, photography, silversmithing, enamelling—you name it, I’ve probably given it a go. Each pursuit came with a shopping list of gear, tools and paraphernalia which I have found difficult to part with - just in case I might need it someday!

But now, I’ve found my forever passion: fused glass.

There’s something utterly captivating about it—the vivid colours, the dance between fragility and strength, and the endless possibilities when using the reactive qualities of glass to achieve something truly unique.

It’s taken a while to find my medium, but looking back, every project, every experiment, and every failure has brought me here. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

PS. I've learned to be a little bit more careful with my powdered glass than I was with my mum's salt!