Taking her cue from her love of traveling, Ruth Shelley’s inspiration derives from her observation of colour, balance and tone of nature. Her gravity dropped vessels create an interplay of light, form and colour that is evocative of the natural world which surrounds us. The vessels take on their own personae and become artworks in their own right as glass sculptures. Shelley always observes how the colours and layers combine as a whole, and how light illuminates them. Shelley says: ‘My aim is to redirect attention back to the colours of nature in scenery and landscape’.
The vessels are kiln-formed glass made by the ‘drop out’ method. Shelley cuts strips of glass and arranges them in complex layers and patterns which are fused together into a sheet. It is then suspended in a kiln on an open mould, heat is applied and gravity fluidly stretches the suspended glass to the floor of the kiln, which is then ground, polished and sandblasted into the finished vessel. Owing to the nature of the applications, Shelley’s vessels are one-offs. It is not possible to make two pieces identical.
