Surface tension: studio glass and the drawn line

Abstract

Surface Tension: Studio Glass and the Drawn Line is practice-led research that investigates how studio glass can be understood through the aesthetics of drawing. Focusing on contemporary and historical ideas of drawing and Anthropologist Tim Ingold's theories on line, the primary innovation is to conceptualise glass forms as drawings. What becomes apparent is that the medium of glass offers specific ways to both conceptualise and realise the drawn line. I argue this by submitting studio glass and drawing to a sustained analysis, through an interrogation of the spatial relationships between form and line. Organised into six chapters, each section of this thesis focuses on examining the utility of glass as a drawing material, and as a substrate for the drawn line. Drawing upon the work of Lazlo Maholy-Nagy, Susan Hefuna, Sol LeWitt, Fred Sandback and geometric theories this study aims to use line as a way to inform, define and enable three-dimensional space. Developing objects, in both two and three dimensions which spatially merge surface and drawing, where the form is not a support but a three-dimensional drawing itself. Show more