Glass articles - Glass Makers and Artists

Scottish Glass – Makers, Craftsmen & Artists
TwistsGreen1 “Lizard” 1, side

Size about 3 in. (75 mm) diameter

Twists Glass Studio

Mike Hunter

by Mary Houston-Lambert
  • 11 years, Wedgwood Glass
  • Perthshire Paperweights
  • Lindean Mill
  • Present, Twists Glass Studio

Mike Hunter of Twists Glass Studio in Selkirk, Scotland, began his love affair with glass as a small boy, gazing with fascination at the colourful, magical twists contained in the marbles he played with. Later, as a 17-year-old apprentice with Wedgwood Glass of Kings Lynn, Norfolk, he remembers asking the master glassblowers how the intricately designed glasses he had seen at the museums were made. None of them could tell him.

It struck him then just how many skills of the 18th century were being lost as more and more machines were introduced to glassmaking, and he determined right then to figure out how they were made and to see if he could learn the techniques himself. On many trips to the museum, without being able to pick up the glasses, he peered into the display cabinets and took notes. After seven years of trial and error at the factory during his lunch breaks, he succeeded in perfecting a technique of embedding coloured glass canes and air into the stems of glassware – a technique not used commercially since Victorian times.

After spending 11 years with Wedgwood, training under master glassblowers from the UK, Italy, Austria, Germany and Scandinavia, and attaining the position of master glass blower and coloured animal maker, he moved to Wales to work for Welsh Royal Crystal as a trainee stem maker. By the time he left Wales, he had mastered many technical disciplines, including designing, reproducing antique glass for museums, free-blowing and stem-forming techniques to production standards, including air-twists, incised twists, cane and straw stems. Already, he had started to practice the Venetian “vetro” technique that was to become his specialty. During this time, he studied and successfully completed the Open Learning Course in Glass Manufacturing.
TwistsPink1?
“Lizard” 2

Size about 3 in. (75 mm) diameter

He then moved to Perthshire Paperweights in Crieff, Scotland, where he was employed for a short time free-blowing with millefiori cane. It was here that he began the note taking that would provide the basis for his Manuscript on Glassmaking Techniques. But then, “…with only the studio movement left to learn techniques, I moved to Lindean Mill in Scotland, where I was employed as production master for stemware.” After three years, he took time out to complete his Manuscript. During this period, in 1994, he achieved recognition for his designs by the Queen's Warrant Holders Association and The Society of Glass Technology. Following the two-year break, he returned to Lindean Mill for a further three years, before achieving his dream of opening up his own studio.

At Twists Studio Glass, Mike produces designs with cane-working techniques, creating traditional contemporary glassware styles based on the designs of 16th and 17th century Venice and 18th century England. He created his flagship technique of “vetro”, the Italian for glass, which demonstrates the combination of his natural talent for design with the highest level of technical skill. The result is a vast array of colour in design that speaks of his unique relationship with glass; the glass on the blowing iron becomes one with Mike as, with a sense of ease and speed, the molten glass is commanded into form– his “vetro”.

Mike has received high recognition and exhibited his work throughout Scotland and England. As well as a commission for Lord and Lady Milburn of Paxton House, Berwick-on-Tweed, he was invited to provide reproduction glasses for the Hornblower series on ITV, and he designed the trophies for the Scottish Businesswomen's Association Awards in 1998 and 1999. His beautiful creations are stocked at the most exclusive outlets: Asprey and Garrards, New York and London, Harrods of Knightsbridge, The Room in Chelsea, Wing On Hong Kong, and Cameo in Paris. In 1999, Twists Studio Glass was a finalist for the Scottish “Gift of the Year” and for Scotland’s Most Enterprising New Business.

Contact:
4 Weavers Court, Forest Mill, Selkirk TD7 5NY

Additional work shown in Glass Images section

References

Information received from Sue Marshall and Alice MacLennan.

Article "Class in their Glass" The Herald Magazine 21 April 2004 (Scotland)

Lizard weight images copyright Sue Marshall 2006.
This page one of a series that will give brief details about people who have or are working in Scottish Glass. If you are or have worked with glass in Scotland, please get in touch, as I would like to feature you too! I would also like to hear from collectors with information on those glass workers who have moved on.
← Jacqui Horning – A’anside Studios   Mike Hunter - Twists Demonstrations 2010 →
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