Feathers-Flying-Feathers

With lots to do after the Glass festival, we immediately started working with the Crystal Chain Gang at the furnace. Our job for the next two days was to mould glass feathers, from a specific New Zealand bird. ‘As many as possible please’, so we had to really get cracking. All these feathers will be used for the Crystal Chain Gangs’ new glass chandelier. Together with Karen at the furnace, the three of us had a lot of fun pouring the glass into the feather shaped moulds. Leanne cut and pressed, then Jim took over for the finishing touches and the final count. Amazingly, we made 650!

We’ve been staying with Claudia and her boyfriend, Anders. They have both been lovely, and the days have sped by far too fast. Claudia Borella makes fusion art with glass. Her studio is huge and really stunning. In two weeks’ time, she will have a show in Wellington, and we have been able to watch her making the pieces for this. On the last evening, just before we were to leave, we realised that we had not yet exchanged all of our ideas and asked her for helpful tips, and so she immediately wrote emails to Japan and China to help us find new contacts there.

We moved on for a few ‘glass free‘ days to Taupo, and Beatrix Ziegler who works for Bavarian television. We got lots of tips from her as to the best possible way to make a film about the Weiberwalz Tour. Her husband took us on an incredibly beautiful round-trip over North Island in a plane. To be flying high over the snow covered mountains for a view of the sea and a coffee in his private plane was fab!

From Taupo we made our way back south to Wellington, to explore New Zealand’s capital city for the day, and then into the countryside back to the Chain Gang. We’ve been here for the last three days; chatting a lot and cooking, as well as drilling holes into every single glass feather, so that in the end they can all be hung on the chandelier. Leanne and Jim are always fun to be with, a real gang- that ‘Crystal Chain Gang’!