Watch master glassblower John Ditchfield at work in his Lancashire studio, Glasform.
Drone footage shows the Dreamkeeper sculpture, which John built in his garden at Singleton and is now a local landmark.
He says: "It took about three years to make, in between other jobs. I can’t make anything really big in one hit because of the size of the furnace but I can put a lot of small pieces together to make a big piece.”
Drone footage shows the Dreamkeeper sculpture, which John built in his garden at Singleton and is now a local landmark.
He says: "It took about three years to make, in between other jobs. I can’t make anything really big in one hit because of the size of the furnace but I can put a lot of small pieces together to make a big piece.”
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CreativityTranscript
00:00I've been a glassmaker since 1968 and I'm still learning.
00:09We make our own glass from raw materials and it's shoveled into the furnace and the furnace
00:15is never switched off and we tend to work from these glory holes, which are hotter and
00:22we can switch them on and off when we want to.
00:26We make probably one of the largest ranges of studio glass in Europe.
00:31It's mainly shapes that people recognise, not art alas so much but more mushrooms, apples,
00:38pears and things like this and various colours and so on and if you design something which
00:45is successful then you've got to make more and more of them and you get into a trap,
00:52you can't experiment or do anything else because you're a successful product and you keep reproducing
00:59it.
01:00The big one, traffic lights, we were quiet at the time and we thought we'd find something
01:07which we could make and add to and then put it down, maybe bring some people in and be
01:16a bit of a landmark of where we are and that took about, in between jobs, about three years
01:22to make that.