I am pleased to introduce to you Mauri of Dichroicdazzle!
You can visit her shop here:
How many years have you been an artist?
My whole life has revolved around creating as far back as I can remember. I won a drawing competition when I was 8 years old to commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer. I have done the usual painting - watercolour acrylic oils, drawing –pencils pastels ink conté sticks charcoal etc... Also silk painting, batik, and a little pottery at school. I went to the School of Jewellery and Silversmithing in Birmingham UK, where I trained to become a goldsmith and attended night school to learn gem setting. I have also attended some life drawing classes at a local college.
How many years have you worked with glass?
My love for working with glass started with an enamel class in Lichfield which my family sent me to as a birthday present 5 years ago. (I had always wanted to have a go at enamelling but the courses available while I was at jewellery school would have involved me moving to London or Kent. This wasn’t an option at the time as I was working for a great employer who I didn’t want to leave, and I had recently bought a house with the man I was to marry). I took to enamel Iike I had worked with it forever, and the metalworking skills came in very handy. My sister had told me of dichroic glass and its beauty, when I saw it for the first time I was hooked. The dichroic glass fusing I learned to do from books and experimenting. I already had a basic understanding of glass from working enamel. What triggers ideas for new projects?Anything and everything, colour combinations and patterns in nature (a sunset or autumn trees etc), doodles I do without thinking while on the phone can turn into ideas for jewellery, geometric shapes, my daughter’s drawings have been made into pieces. My friends and family make suggestions of things they would like. I have made some of my better pieces with the starting point of a word or colour combination from someone else. Even the materials themselves can be a source of inspiration, sometimes I just play with the glass layering it until I find a combination I like. I rarely take design seriously I am quite free and flowing.
When do ideas come to you?
How often?I always have a head full of ideas and sketch books overflowing so I don’t really notice how often ideas come. Most of what I make has been waiting to be created for a while. I only worry I will not have enough time to make everything I want to make.
What percentage of the day do you think about or work on your art?
All day, and at night I dream about it - how obsessive is that! I get some of my best ideas while I am relaxed in bed.
Do you create daily?
I work on something every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
How important is it for you to create art?
I don’t think I could function without creating. It’s a drive. Even when I was stuck in a chair with a broken leg I knitted jumpers hats scarves and gloves for my children. It really pained me to be unable to enter my workshop for so many months.
Do you feel that choosing the artist’s life has been a sacrifice?
Have you given up certain luxuries?
I should have been in my final year of a Radiography Degree by now but art is not the reason I gave that up. It was a nasty leg injury I got 2 years ago that took so long for me to recover from (in fact I’m not 100% yet) I had to give in for a while. I could say it’s a poorer life financially, but I am rich in the extra time I have with my two lovely children and the freedom I have to do what I really love. I only wish I could sell more to be able to buy more materials to make more. In the end money is not the most important thing and you don’t need it to have fun. I know it’s a cliché but it’s so true. The best things in life are free and my children are the outdoor type, happy to run about and play in the park. I live in such a beautiful place; it’s a joy to look out of my bedroom window each morning. I’m lucky to own a mobile home in Avoca, Wicklow ‘the garden of Ireland’ so my family and I can have holidays when we like and we can visit our relatives in England. I regret nothing. Maybe one day when the children are old I’ll get back to my degree and earn good money to save for my retirement at the moment I am contented with my lot.
Describe your studio.
It’s a large galvanised shed in the back yard. I like it that way because it’s separate from the house and safer for the children that way. Its messy most of the time, but when it’s tidy I can never find anything, so I guess its organised chaos.I have a jewellers set up with the traditional bench, cut out with a semicircle, and a jewellers peg and skin (to catch the silver and gold dust), an array of hand tools, a micro flame for soldering, a pendant drill (flexi shaft) a pickle pot, a polishing lathe and Elma ultrasonic cleaner. Then there’s the glass working set up, enamelling and fusing kilns, grinder, hand tools and lots of glass. I am saving for a lampworking set up at the moment. I have wanted to have a go for a long time, and now I have a local beading artist who wants buy my beads once I start. She prefers to source locally and no one else in Ireland is lampworking yet.
Tell me something about you.
I have two gorgeous kids and one husband (which is enough for anyone) I live the beautiful and rural old Cathedral town of in Elphin in Ireland. It has its own 18th Century restored windmill. We moved there a few months ago and I have never been happier. We decided it would be a better place for the kids to grow up with the freedom I we had as children which is impossible to have in the busy cities of today. I have a 16 year old cat called Smudge who I adore. My children have two rabbits and a guinea pig which I look after. I love to walk in the county side because it makes me feel good to be alive and I value now more than ever the ability to walk.
My whole life has revolved around creating as far back as I can remember. I won a drawing competition when I was 8 years old to commemorate the marriage of Prince Charles to Diana Spencer. I have done the usual painting - watercolour acrylic oils, drawing –pencils pastels ink conté sticks charcoal etc... Also silk painting, batik, and a little pottery at school. I went to the School of Jewellery and Silversmithing in Birmingham UK, where I trained to become a goldsmith and attended night school to learn gem setting. I have also attended some life drawing classes at a local college.
How many years have you worked with glass?
My love for working with glass started with an enamel class in Lichfield which my family sent me to as a birthday present 5 years ago. (I had always wanted to have a go at enamelling but the courses available while I was at jewellery school would have involved me moving to London or Kent. This wasn’t an option at the time as I was working for a great employer who I didn’t want to leave, and I had recently bought a house with the man I was to marry). I took to enamel Iike I had worked with it forever, and the metalworking skills came in very handy. My sister had told me of dichroic glass and its beauty, when I saw it for the first time I was hooked. The dichroic glass fusing I learned to do from books and experimenting. I already had a basic understanding of glass from working enamel. What triggers ideas for new projects?Anything and everything, colour combinations and patterns in nature (a sunset or autumn trees etc), doodles I do without thinking while on the phone can turn into ideas for jewellery, geometric shapes, my daughter’s drawings have been made into pieces. My friends and family make suggestions of things they would like. I have made some of my better pieces with the starting point of a word or colour combination from someone else. Even the materials themselves can be a source of inspiration, sometimes I just play with the glass layering it until I find a combination I like. I rarely take design seriously I am quite free and flowing.
When do ideas come to you?
How often?I always have a head full of ideas and sketch books overflowing so I don’t really notice how often ideas come. Most of what I make has been waiting to be created for a while. I only worry I will not have enough time to make everything I want to make.
What percentage of the day do you think about or work on your art?
All day, and at night I dream about it - how obsessive is that! I get some of my best ideas while I am relaxed in bed.
Do you create daily?
I work on something every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
How important is it for you to create art?
I don’t think I could function without creating. It’s a drive. Even when I was stuck in a chair with a broken leg I knitted jumpers hats scarves and gloves for my children. It really pained me to be unable to enter my workshop for so many months.
Do you feel that choosing the artist’s life has been a sacrifice?
Have you given up certain luxuries?
I should have been in my final year of a Radiography Degree by now but art is not the reason I gave that up. It was a nasty leg injury I got 2 years ago that took so long for me to recover from (in fact I’m not 100% yet) I had to give in for a while. I could say it’s a poorer life financially, but I am rich in the extra time I have with my two lovely children and the freedom I have to do what I really love. I only wish I could sell more to be able to buy more materials to make more. In the end money is not the most important thing and you don’t need it to have fun. I know it’s a cliché but it’s so true. The best things in life are free and my children are the outdoor type, happy to run about and play in the park. I live in such a beautiful place; it’s a joy to look out of my bedroom window each morning. I’m lucky to own a mobile home in Avoca, Wicklow ‘the garden of Ireland’ so my family and I can have holidays when we like and we can visit our relatives in England. I regret nothing. Maybe one day when the children are old I’ll get back to my degree and earn good money to save for my retirement at the moment I am contented with my lot.
Describe your studio.
It’s a large galvanised shed in the back yard. I like it that way because it’s separate from the house and safer for the children that way. Its messy most of the time, but when it’s tidy I can never find anything, so I guess its organised chaos.I have a jewellers set up with the traditional bench, cut out with a semicircle, and a jewellers peg and skin (to catch the silver and gold dust), an array of hand tools, a micro flame for soldering, a pendant drill (flexi shaft) a pickle pot, a polishing lathe and Elma ultrasonic cleaner. Then there’s the glass working set up, enamelling and fusing kilns, grinder, hand tools and lots of glass. I am saving for a lampworking set up at the moment. I have wanted to have a go for a long time, and now I have a local beading artist who wants buy my beads once I start. She prefers to source locally and no one else in Ireland is lampworking yet.
Tell me something about you.
I have two gorgeous kids and one husband (which is enough for anyone) I live the beautiful and rural old Cathedral town of in Elphin in Ireland. It has its own 18th Century restored windmill. We moved there a few months ago and I have never been happier. We decided it would be a better place for the kids to grow up with the freedom I we had as children which is impossible to have in the busy cities of today. I have a 16 year old cat called Smudge who I adore. My children have two rabbits and a guinea pig which I look after. I love to walk in the county side because it makes me feel good to be alive and I value now more than ever the ability to walk.
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1 comment:
Wonderful interview, Mauri- great to learn more about you!
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