Curious Work

As Out of Hand we (Juliet Lockhart, Alison Bournes and me) have some ghost stories to tell on Instagram this October. This is my first: Friendly ghosts and ancestors: I’d been working with glass for over a decade when I found out my great-grandfather Henry McReavy was a glassblower in Sunderland, when factory-glass production was at its height. ‘Past Tense Future Imperfect’ is a mixed-media, self-portrait that reflects the discovered connection. A practical welders glove, slashed (loosely after the style of the late 16th to early 17th century) to reveal translucent, deliberately ornate glass rings, rinsed of colour, elusive, providing constant shifting perspectives and distortions. Even the recent past is seen ‘Through a glass, darkly’.