Sigrún Einarsdóttir

A love affair with glass

• Sigrún Einarsdóttir owns the only glass blowing furnace in Iceland
• Iceland's president gifted a piece to the Danish queen, Margrete II.
• She believes glass is magic

Sigrún Einarsdóttir graduated from the Denmark Academy of Design in 1979. She was the first woman to graduate from this school as a glass designer and the first person to graduate with a glass degree in Iceland. She and her late husband Sören S.Larsen set up their glass studio in 1982. Since the early eighties she has exhibited across the world and been featured in many international publications including New Glass Review published by The Corning Museum of Glass. Although she is no longer blowing glass, she keeps her furnace running for other artists, keeping the craft alive. She continues to make work with other glass techniques, or works with former students to realise her creations.

Interview

©Andrew Teran

©Sigrún Einarsdóttir

Where did you train as a glassblower?

There was no glassblowing in Iceland. I saw glassblowing for the first time at school in Denmark. It was love at first sight. I was lucky enough, Ejner Sörensen, who had 45 years of experience at Holmegaard Factory, was hired to teach glassblowing.

Do you master any specific techniques?

One of my techniques is rather unknown or unused. It is a pick-up technique, where a picture is pre-made on the marver (metal table) with coloured glass powder. Hot glass is then rolled over it and the picture is ‘picked up’ onto the surface of the piece.

How do you continue to create?

I want to keep making so today I do mostly kiln work. Also, for some years I have been collaborating with a textile artist, Ólöf Einarsdottir, creating work that combines glass and fibers. This has been a really enriching experience. We have got good attention in the international glass scene, we have been selected three times to be in New Glass Review.

Is glass making an endangered craft?

In other Nordic countries it is not so bad, there are studios dedicated to glass making. But in Iceland, glassblowing died out when I stopped. I have just started to rent the furnace but the artists come from abroad as no one is trained in this country.

Sigrún Einarsdóttir is an expert artisan: she began her career in 1979

Works

©IMYND_G-Ingolfsson

©Sigrún Einarsdóttir

©Sigrún Einarsdóttir

©Sigrún Einarsdóttir

©Sigrún Einarsdóttir

Where