Amanda J. Simmons:
Glass Artist

Amanda enjoys investigating how things go together and come apart again. She started on this path as an engineer working with machines; diagnosing and fixing faults. This led Amanda to re-train as a scientist and adapt her skills with machines to people; she learned that they can’t always be fixed.

“ From the very first moment working with glass I knew I had found my medium. I can communicate my ideas most easily through glass; it has technical, chemical and physical challenges and comes to life when mixed with light.

I like to work on themes of structure........in our lives, in nature, architecture and the human body. This is physically achieved by many layers of glass being fired, to build up depth of pattern, colour, creating bubbles and movement.

Caroline Dear

“My work is the result of a detailed observation and enquiry into the world around me. From an understanding of the balance and flow within nature I am exploring our relationship with the natural world and the subtle connections that exist between our inner selves and the outer physical landscape.

I started making images of the marks on the landscape and this slowly developed, honing down to the intangible essence of a place and the intrinsic fundamentals of sea, rock and earth. I use the plants here in the same way, creating simple forms which have resonance.

This work explores forms using natural materials; pushing grass, rush and heather to their structural limits.

Michael Durning: Drawing & Painting

“The work I produce values draughtsmanship and composition, combining rhythm and colour to create graphic and powerful images.

My subject matter has risen from concerns over the destruction of Scottish industry architecture and sites of historical importance. I find stark beauty in the monuments of the past. Incongruously what I find beautiful is a defeated and dead thing.

In my painting I have examined and questioned Scotland’s economical, cultural, historical and political changes using the images of it’s architectural and redundant industry to get an audience to reassess Scotland’s cultural identity. I see myself as continuing Scotland’s pedigree and tradition of realistic painting, with a sense of place and history, social comment and a strong reliance on the fundamental skills”.

Hanne Mannheimer

“Most of all I want my work to communicate the simple beauty that is all around us and that we only need to open our eyes to see in the most unexpected of places. The old and discarded have this in particular, overlooked and abandoned beauty that I find has a reality to it rather than something that is obviously pretty.

Flaking paint, telegraph pole wires, rusty hinges, scribbled words on an old wall.....

I use found materials like glass beads, various metal wires and occasionally textured wall-paper to create a subtle layered pattern…. reduction fired in a glass kiln …… The metal wire and beads melt and produce unique copper pinks and light blue celadon colours and effects due to the reduction of oxygen in the kiln.”

Shona Fidgett

Since studying jewellery design at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee and San Diago State University, Shona has developed her style of bold modern jewellery. This classic but contemporary approach takes inspiration from architecture, using geometric forms in bold clean-lined pieces. Since graduating Shona has successfully established her name, supplying her jewellery to various outlets, galleries and exhibitions This jewellery has a broad range of wearers who appreciate its elegant simplicity and original design.

Her latest collection features new themes, including a range of earrings and pendants with 18ct moving circles that allow fluid movement. Each piece is handcrafted with an emphasis on quality.