Life lines, glass lines
- Michael creates glassware for individuals and brands
- He is often inspired by American landscapes
- His signature technique is marking lines in glass
Michael Ruh recalls being enthralled when he first saw glass being made at a colonial fair in Missouri. But it was not until he enrolled in a fine arts institute in Belgium to study sculpture that he had a chance to work with the material. “My first glass object was a small bubble in glass, thick and lumpy, the size of a golf ball. It had no purpose and was unusable – but I had never been prouder,” he says. After he met partner Natascha Wahl, together they founded their London studio, one of the few studios in the UK that uses fully recycled optical quality glass. There, Michael makes visually stimulating coloured glass objects, into which he incises lines when the glass is still hot – a technique that has since come to distinguish his work.
Interview
- Where does your love for glasswork come from?
- I first tried my hand at glass making at university, and it was love at first sight. To this day I am infatuated by the optical properties of glass, by the contradictions of the material and its ability to capture and freeze a moment of the making process.
- Why do you prefer working with recycled glass?
- My glassblowing studio is very energy dependent, since we have a furnace and ovens running all the time. As I am very aware of this and wanted to reduce our imprint, I started sourcing recycled glass. It is a small thing we are doing, but it is still something.
- How do you express tradition and innovation in your work?
- I use skills that have remained unchanged for centuries. To modernise them, I made tools with which I can scribe lines into glass, while it is still hot. So, by simple means and tools, I made a way to embellish glass in a different way.
- What is your dream project?
- I would love to do a large-scale installation in glass, metal and wood, perhaps over a big piazza outdoors or in a huge atrium. Not necessarily an enormous piece, but one with many small glass and light components that would create something visually grand.
Michael Ruh is an expert artisan: he began his career in 1992 and he started teaching in 2004
Where
Michael Ruh
