Where Science and Art Meet - the Story so far!

Anthropology is about the science of human beings.  

Shaping glass as it transforms from a solid to a liquid is about the science of heat and gravity.   It is also about beauty – how glass refracts and reflects light, how it can be both soft and hard, transparent or opaque.

Jo combines her love of science and art by using glass as a medium to make sculptures about social anthropology - the origin, nature and destiny of human beings.    Her work explores the culture, stories, myths, beliefs and language that tie groups of people together. 

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My glass story started when I was young - my mum was an artistic painter, a lover of biology and also a super craftswoman. She did knitting, sewing, puppet-making, woodwork, copper work, leather punching, and gardening - in addition to fine acrylic and water colour art. My Dad was interested in geography, politics, reading and also making things. I also loved reading, biology, dance, art and craft, and making things - and most of all just doing stuff and being busy.

My first job (way back in the mid eighties!) was in Medical Laboratory Technology. I loved science - especially biology - and a long time before the industry was mechanised, I got to work with test tubes, petri dishes, glass slides and pipettes - measuring and mixing liquids and chemicals, and spending a lot of time looking down a microscope while I worked my way through an apprenticeship.

Fast forward through the next 22 years by which time I had done a three year OE, and studied and worked in the other loves of my life - English Literature, Linguistics, Anthropology and Design. During this time I arrived at the door of a mosaic workshop which then led to a mosaic conference in Hobart, Tasmania. It was here that I heard a presentation by a sculptor of life sized birds - some with a wing span of 5 metres in length - and each wing was decorated with kilnformed glass feathers!

I was fascinated and hooked - and after twelve years my fascination has not ended.

I love my job! And I am passionate about what I do!