Gillies Jones: Opaque Yellow Bowl

About the artist:

Gillies Jones

Partners in life and art, Stephen Gillies (b. 1967) and Kate Jones (b. 1966) work together to make exceptional contemporary glass from their studio and workshop in the village of Rosedale Abbey. Made the slow way, just as glass was prior to the industrial revolution, their blown glass has a unique aesthetic appeal, inspired by the elemental beauty of the North York Moors.

Gillies started his technical skills training at Stourbridge College of Art, in the historic centre of British glass-making, and then at Wolverhampton University. He works in the hotshop at the Glass Museum in Ebeltoft, Denmark and with the glass team of Philip Baldwin and Monica Guggisberg in Switzerland. Jones trained in painting and went on to spend a year learning to adapt her visual skill to the design and decoration of glass at the International Glass Centre in Brierley Hill, Dudley. By then she was fully converted to glass and the opportunities it offered for self-expression, and she has brought a clearly defined sense of design to the partnership.

The pair have received worldwide recognition for their complex cameo designs; a process of folding coloured glass bubbles over each other to create a multi-layered form. The traditional methods they used are practised by only a few glass makers across the world. They describe their work as ‘defiantly decorative’ and their pieces can be found in major public and private collections across the UK and around the world.