Karoline Cumming
karoline
I’ve always been creative - one of the very first memories I have is my dad’s young electrical apprentice to draw a horse for me. And I used to love painting on the back verandah of my parents house; making a complete mess!
My parents are both creative, and they’ve passed the love of making to me. My mother taught me to sew - including drafting and adapting my own patterns.
As an adult, I’ve explored textile art, mixed media, jewellery making and glasswork. I’ve always been drawn to jewellery and precious stones, and my love for colours is explored through glass. The meditative process of melting glass to form a bead is something I truly enjoy.
What makes my products special
My work explores creating visual texture: depth and contrast between different layers of glass. The overall designs I enjoy creating are simple; although I don’t describe work as “minimalist”.
The findings, chain and wire used in my jewellery are predominantly sterling silver. If I’m not prepared to wear a particular metal myself, I will never use it in the jewellery I create. The silver I used is created from reclaimed silver that has been refined.
The glass used in my stained glass works are mostly offcuts obtained from leadlight window craftspeople and suppliers. Many of my offcuts are passed on to mosaic and glass fusing artists. I love that many different artists can use parts of an original sheet of glass - minimising waste from one artist to another.
The one thing I would love customers to know about my work is the amount of experimentation that goes into working with glass. To have an idea and then create that bead in the flame takes a certain amount of skill, a certain amount of experimentation and then a certain amount of serendipity! And then, after annealing for 11 hours in the kiln (for strength and durability of the glass), the results may - or may not be - what was hoped for!