GILLIES JONES

Aesculus, 2008.
Blown glass with sand blasted surfaces
30cm x 24cm

Gillies Jones is a partnership between glassmaker Stephen Gillies and artist Kate Jones. Our work is the synthesis of technical precision and creativity. It is the product of over 20 years dedication to skill and the search for creative expression.

All our work is vessel based. The ‘Aesculus’ is a representation of the husk of the annually abundant horse chestnut seed. The core and recurrent theme is the connection between patterns of the natural world. The ability to overlook this connection is easy and observation of the beauty in the small and its place in the larger pattern in life is what the Aesculus represents.

The technique of each piece in overlay blown glass creates layers, which are ultimately eroded to reveal the ‘patterns’. This challenging technical process makes a complex piece, which uses the inherent qualities of glass to the full.
Stephen Gillies is an accomplished glassmaker. For him, hot glass is about the physical act of making. It is demanding, difficult, strenuous and a lifetime’s work in order to achieve the highest technical standards.

Kate Jones is an artist, whose observations of small components of the natural world has been the source of her art for many years, through drawing and print making onto glass.

A love of the qualities of the material, its endless creative possibilities and our different skill sets are what keeps our partnership strong, focused and creative and enables us to continually develop and refine all aspects of our work.

Biography pdf

Gillies Jones filler

Selected Biography

STEPHEN GILLIES
1990 - 1991: MA Hons 3D Glass Design, Wolverhampton University.
1989 - 1990: International Glass Centre West Midlands.
1987 - 1989: BA Hons 3D Glass Design Stourbridge College of Art.

Apprenticed to artists Guggisberg Baldwin in Switzerland.
Worked in various Studios and Ebeltoft Glass Museum in Denmark. Completed various courses in USA & at Northlands Creative Glass First Glass UK.

KATE JONES
1985 - 1989: BA Hons Fine Art, Stourbridge College of Art
International Glass Centre West Midlands.

COLLECTIONS
Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Farringdon Collection Trust, Oxfordshire.
Museum of Modern Glass, Rodental Kunstlammlungen der. Veste de Coburg, Germany.
Cowdy Collection, Newent, England.
Bolton Museum & Art Gallery.
Broadfield House Glass Museum, Stourbridge.
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Ebeltoft Glass Museum, Denmark.