Rowanberry Glass Art – Claire Morris
Claire lives in Staffordshire with her husband and 3 demanding cats. She is a full-time and self-employed Lampworker/Glass artist. Says Claire: “It doesn’t make me rich (far from it) but I so love what I do which makes all of the difference!” Claire came to glasswork from her jewellery design experience in March 2006 – she was becoming increasingly bored by beads on the market and found it unethical to use mass produced glass beads and wanted to be able to create pieces of jewellery that were as handmade and unique as possible. These days, however, Claire prefers to see the bead as a piece of art in its own right, and tends to not make them into jewellery.
Claire says: “One thing I love about glass is that there’s always so much to learn and discover about it, it’s such an
exciting medium to work with! It’s an on-going learning process that always will provide you with a new source of interest and something brand new to inspire you. I am wholly self-taught through books, DVDs and through help from lampworking forums. The best part about being in the UK is the amazing amount of stunning scenery, myths, legends and history that we have here – this provides me with a great range of sources of inspiration, from mountains, to ancient forests and stone circles. I feel blessed to live in a land that’s so rich in the Earth’s bounties and with such a deep and varied history. I am also a Pagan and environmentalist. My spirituality, pantheist beliefs, and love of nature and the earth play a big part in my inspiration. There is always a lot of “me” in a piece of my work. I really do enjoy the artistic progress, following the flow from inspiration to creation to completion – I get such a buzz!”
See more of Claire’s work on her website at www.rowanberryglassart.com.