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Product category: Glass
News Release from: Daedalian Glass | Subject: Series of 'glass-scapes'
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial Team on 06 November 2006

Daedalian helps press the case for
conservation

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Sculptor Ruth Moilliet has appointed artistic glass designers Daedalian Glass to produce a series of 'glass-scapes' of wild flowers.

Scheduled to go on tour in the North West later this year is a fascinating exhibition by the sculptor Ruth Moilliet, who has appointed artistic glass designers Daedalian Glass to produce a series of 'glass-scapes' of wild flowers With the pressures exerted by industrial and urban expansion, many wild flower meadows are in danger of becoming increasingly rare in today's rural landscapes

In the exhibition which seeks to bring this home in a strong visual manner, Ruth has used laminated glass panels as flower presses for a combination of real flowers, digital images that have been cut out and 'pressed' between glass and images taken from Ruth's drawings and sandblasted onto glass.

The exhibit features 18 flowers that are becoming rare - among them cowslips, poppies and cornflowers - and these are featured in 2m high laminated panels produced by Daedalian's Davia Walmsley and her colleagues.

Davia Walmsley, who founded Daedalian with her husband, Chris, just over 20 years ago, worked with Ruth Miolliet over a six month period to bring the concept to reality.

"I'd worked in glass before," says Ruth, but to a much smaller scale of 40cm x 30cm., creating what I call a window of flowers between up to 20-30 sheets of glass.

"I'd discussed projects with Daedalian on a couple of occasions in the past, and then the Arts Officer for Lancashire recommended I talk to them about this project, which was much bigger than anything I'd tackled before.

"I loved working with them, as much as anything because they allowed me to get involved so that I was working alongside them (deleted text) and gaining a real understanding of the processes they used.

This was very satisfying, because working through an idea can be quite a stressful process, but they were a great support".

As happens with many Daedalian projects, they produced smaller scale samples before going to the full-size end-result, and this was another area that gave Ruth confidence in Daedalian as working partners.

As a result of this first experience, she sees the relationship they developed as an ongoing thing.

The panels are displayed vertically at random when exhibited to create the impression of a wildflower meadow.

This is then set off by daylight and sunlight filtering through the glass creating different effects at different times of the day.

The reality of the pressed flowers is tempered by their loss of colour once picked and pressed, whilst the digital images present a contrasting riot of colour reminiscent of a wildflower meadow, and the sandblasted images give a crystaline effect.

Individually, all three concentrate the attention through the difference in texture and colour, whilst collectively they forcibly bring home to Ruth's audience the extent of the loss we and subsequent generations face through the destruction of another part of our environment.

The first leg of the tour was at the Gallery Oldham in Lancashire.

This ended in September and two more dates have been confirmed at Warrington (in December) and Runcorn (in February).

Meanwhile, Daedalian has worked with Ruth on a second project of smaller panels, using the digital wild flower images, which is currently on display at the Barbed Gallery in Barnes, South West London.

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