TABS

Deb Jones:
Enterprise and Multi-Skilling

A Profile by Ann McMahon

I first encountered Deb Jones at a talk during the National Sculpture Forum, Canberra 2001. Her presentation stood out on two counts. Firstly, she was a lone glass artist among sculptors. Her design for the entry to Adelaide airport won a major public art commission, which she described as “a dream job; money was no object.” Jones' presentation had been scheduled before the project was cancelled in the aftermath of the Ansett collapse. The talk focused on the process of developing the design concept into an achievable project. A pair of twisted wings, like monumental propeller blades were to be installed on either side of the terminal entrance. Jones described her collaboration with engineers and builders to devise a safe structure and effective means of fixing the glass exterior panels to the enormous armatures.

A second characteristic distinguishing Jones' delivery was her wry, self deprecating humor. It was perhaps a logical approach for the artist, put on the spot and asked to discuss a failed project. ‘How could I take myself seriously?' she asked when I spoke to her in Adelaide . I recall that her presentation was a breath of fresh air after two intense days of listening to very serious sculptors. The hand-drawn overheads finishing with a caricature of Jones herself were a great touch, an improvised solution to the complete lack of images for ‘the project that never was.' But this is entirely in keeping with Jones personality and attitude to life which is, perhaps, best summed up by the slogan on her work shirt, “My Empire of Dirt.”

There is a down to earth, unassuming quality and laid back attitude that belies Jones' technical proficiency across mediums, her professional accomplishments and amazing capacity for effective organization and outstanding achievement. Jones is employed at the Jam Factory in the Glass Studio as Commissions Manager, which involves client recruitment and negotiations, providing quotes, production supervision and working with the Jam‘s Glass Associates or trainees. Job sharing with Tom Moore allows Jones to divide her time between the Jam and Blue Pony Studios. Jones' wages support her studio practice, relieving her of the time and productivity pressures that come with relying on income solely from an exhibition or production based practice. She commented that it allows her more freedom to select and develop projects.

In 1996, Jones was a founding member of Blue Pony Studios, a glass cooperative. Her partners were Gabrielle Bisetto current head of Glass at the University of SouthAustralia , Matt Larwood, Claire Belfrage, and Jane Cowie. Although the Pony has lost Larwood to full time duties as Head of the Glass Studio at the Jam Factory and Cowie to Singapore, Jessica Loughlin has joined as a core member and others, including: Tom Moore, Tim Edwards, Andrew Baldwin and Jonathan Daddy, are currently temporary or semi-permanent residents. Pony equipment is owned either in partnerships or by individuals, but it is available, according to the only non-negotiable rule of the establishment, for use by all rent paying members and visiting residents.

Open days at the Blue Pony, in the Adelaide suburb of Stepney are an occasion to meet the enterprising artists, to see where and how they work and to look inside the wonderful old industrial building. It had been used as a storage facility and joinery until Otto's Hardware moved across the road to new premises and the artists moved in. Between them they have equipped the ground floor with: a kitchen corner; a workshop area incorporating kilns, ovens, custom built workbenches and welding gear; a plaster room for casting; a cold working area with an impressive variety of polishers, grinders and cutters; and an acid room in a semi-detached space at the rear of the building. The first floor now houses individual work spaces where drawings, reference materials, experiments, works in progress and finished pieces are evidence of each artist's practice.

An area set up for photography, the beer fridge and a circle of second hand armchairs are the shared facilities upstairs. The Pony has always operated as a collaborative enterprise and meetings, particularly of core members, have been critical for managing evolving cooperative relationships and negotiating business decisions. Working in such an environment is artistically stimulating and rewarding. Jones particularly enjoys having Tom Moore as a resident. Moore could perhaps be described as ‘Leunig in glass.' A skilled hot worker, he draws ideas then working spontaneously in glass, incorporates the plant, animal and anthropomorphic forms hatched from a fertile imagination. His surreal take on the world and absurd humor provide a blessed relief from the austerity and discipline of the minimalism that Jones practices.

An old concept drawing, realized in recent works by Jones, graces the wall near her work table. The finished pieces, in grey cast glass, presented a considerable technical challenge to successfully complete. An even, circular diffusion of light across the square surface is created by a deep spherical void which thins the glass in the middle of the work. Such extreme variation in thickness increases thermal tensions and such pieces often do not survive the cooling process after casting. The works are sculptural and characteristically deceptive in their simplicity. They are destined for Six, a show by six friends at Adelaide Gallery, BMG Art. The exhibition is timed to coincide with the 2005 Glass Art Society (GAS) Conference and along with Jones there will be works by Nick Mount and Blue Pony residents: Bisetto, Belfrage, Edwards and Loughlin.

When Loughlin established herself at the Pony, Jones found a kindred spirit. They share a strict minimal aesthetic and turn to each other for critical feedback particularly in relation to concept development and technical experimentation. The two have been collaborating on a plan to create a temporary site specific installation during GAS in a narrow space between two buildings in the plaza between the Jam Factory and the University of South Australia . The Lion Arts Centre Courtyard area will be the focus of public activities that have been planned by the GAS social committee, which is chaired by Jones. Down at the Drill Hall parade ground the Corning Museum 's mobile glass workshop will be another attraction adding to the event. Increased Area , the temporary public artwork conceived by Jones and Loughlin is a 14metre long mirror wedge ‘intended to bring the sky down into the plaza.'

When I was in Adelaide in February, Increased Area was just an idea and the artists had no funds for construction or materials. It is impressive that since then, insurance has been arranged, scaffolding has been orgaised, the mirror has been cut and an agreement has been struck with glaziers to install the piece. It is doubtful that such an ambitious project could have been accomplished in the relatively short time frame without Jones' experience and professional contacts. In 2004, with artist Nico Kelly, she completed a public art commission for the entrance of the new women's wing of the Lyell McEwin Hospital in Elizabethvale. They worked on the project with architects, engineers, builders and landscapers under project managers, Hansen and Yunken. Jones relished the experience and developed a good relationship with the construction company and proudly reports that the project came in just under budget. Chevron Glass, an industrial supplier, has come to the GAS party as material sponsor of Increased Area .

Jones' preparation for the Lyell McEwin project included working alongside stonemasons in an Adelaide quarry. She says she learned a lot as she unobtrusively cut pavers in her allocated corner. She was usually assumed to be one of the laborers on the building site and nodded her way through both enthusiastic approval and scathingly critical comments on the work and the concept. In her signature pared back style she used a mound on one side of a paved exterior space to suggest a feminine form. Set in to the other side a rounded stone like an enormous egg invites contemplation, offering a quiet place to sit. The exterior ‘bumps' are echoed in interior panels in the entrance way. The work experience also affirmed Jones's love of stone and she has first dibs on a flawed, reject slab at the quarry, which she hopes to use in a future public art work. She describes the surface as resembling a “petrified sea.”

This close attention to surface and material quality is a characteristic that is always present in Jones' work. It is a feature that links the pieces in Similar Existence . The exhibition featured in South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA) and showed at Craft ACT in 2003. The show, which continues to tour regional South Australia with Country Arts in 2005, is a series of conceptual pieces in a surprising range of media including glass, stone and works on paper. Rhythmic markings in Jones prints and drawings clearly demonstrate her preoccupation with space. Two of the works on paper in Similar Existence focus on line. Each mark echoes the path of the next to create a sense of movement between areas of varying density. This is also a key principle in a print, in which black ants are repeated graphic elements. The work reflects on social organization and industry, inviting the viewer to consider disturbing parallels to unmindfull behaviours in our own society.

Jones also implies space through the surface qualities of her chosen materials. In the dyptich We are Water, two surfaces display etched marks, a pattern suggestive of glass fractures or arteries. It sinks into the heavy, opaque Adelaide blackstone surface, but floats tantalizingly above the space reflected in the other, a mirror. Positive and negative spaces are explored through the internal and external volumes as in Equal to one life . Voids are evident in the work; a pair of rectangular prisms cast in red crystal.

'The artist's own cast elbow appears in one prism, while in the other, a similar form, elusive yet tantalizingly evocative, is a tree branch.'

'Similar Existence, a work sharing the exhibition title, consists of three simple shapes cast in solid lead crystal and is perhaps the most enigmatic piece. Each form demands to be considered in comparison to the others. The viewer contemplates differences in shape and the material qualities of the crystal used in each.

The effect is a challenging Juddian minimalism. The piece at the centre is transparent and evokes an awareness of both internal and external space, expressing most clearly, Jones architectural sensibility. She says,“I like objects that are silent and I like that glass has a depth you can't touch.” In public art Jones shows her capacity to work with architectural form and space in a larger than life scale, but the same sensibility is evident in the small intimate works in Geometry Rhythm and Light. Jones' work consists of several series of repeated objects that display small individual differences. They are arranged in straight lines to encourage comparison and show gradation to best effect. Variation of internal volume is of particular interest in a series of shot glasses. The work ponders the quality of life; “Is the glass half full or half empty?” An empty glass presents one extreme possibility, while at the other end of the spectrum a solid form represents a glass filled beyond capacity.

The show was curated by David for Object Australian Craft and Design Centre.Sequiera describes Jones' installations of simple glasses, bottles and bowls in terms of time series, where change is explored and documented through the process of making and ‘the work is essentially about transformation.' As vessels, Jones' pieces also read as a metaphor for individuality. Jones demands that the viewer seeks out difference, but asks that the qualities making something or someone unique are valued. The work is an understated metaphor for acceptance. Each piece, on one level is quite ordinary, but speaks about social inclusion; for that place in society where we can each be just who we are. Jones' installation is concept driven, yet it is also about making. The exhibition embraces and celebrates the craft and technical skills implicit in production. The show also includes works by Elizabeth Kelly, Jonathan Baskett, Maureen Williams and Mel Douglas. The curator deliberately uses simple forms to investigate the most basic properties of glass, such as transparency, diffusion, colour, opacity and form. The medium's language is expressed through fundamental visual elements and principles.

Geometry Rhythm and Light at Craft ACT is one of six locations in which Jones will have work showing during the period of the GAS Conference. She does not believe this feat is likely to repeat in her lifetime. Along with the temporary installation Increased Area ; Six and Similar Existence , at the South Coast Regional Arts Centre in Goolwa, Jones will also have work in Drinking Tools at the Worldsend Hotel and in Sweet Cheeks at the Grace Emily Hotel, where glass and voyeurism collide. The last two venues will be focuses for informal social activity and interaction during GAS. Jones has developed a strong reputation as a glass artist and her work is readily accepted into specialist galleries.

In recent years she has been included in: At the Edge – Australian Glass Art a 2000 Brisbane City Art Gallery exhibition also shown at Object and Gallerie Handwerk in Munich, and in 2001 in the UK, London Calling – Contemporary Applied Arts and in Glass Art in Australia at Quadrivium. She was in the Stephen Procter Memorial show at Quadrivium in 2002 as well as Less is More, Less is a Bore at the Brisbane City Art Gallery and in Between 2 Spaces at the Jam Factory. Her Solo, Similar Existence first showed in 2003 and in 2004 her work was in Drawing Today at the Adelaide Central Gallery and Culture Now at the NGV. While glass is usually categorized as decorative art, works by Jones demand to be understood from a conceptual or sculptural perspective.

It is not surprising, Jones studied sculpture and graphic investigation at the Canberra School of Art and credits Peter Herel as having a profound influence on her approach to making art. An earlier influence was that of textile artist Sue Blanchfield, now a lecturer in Art Education at the University of Wollongong , who taught art in Parkes where Jones grew up. When Jones began as an associate at the Jam Factory, Nick Mount was in his first year as Head of Glass. She was inspired by his energy and enthusiasm, but also learned the business of production under Liz Kelly. Czech sculptors Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová have also been of interest to Jones. They were able to explore modernist abstraction in glass during a politically repressive period under a regime that advocated social realism in traditional art mediums. Working in a state glassworks, they received support, while evading political attention by promoting their innovations in casting as technical developments in a ‘decorative art' medium rather than as avant-garde art or courageous free expression.

As an established glass artist, Jones finds her works readily accepted into exhibitions, but wonders if the conceptual intention of the work is appreciated. Jones is a highly skilled maker, but this should not distract attention from the source of her art. Her soul is that of a poet. Jones does not use words, but comments, “Some things are better said in another way.” Her skill and talent for problem solving gives her a remarkable capacity to innovate. Jones applies her lively intelligence to the options presented by a range of mediums and processes in order to achieve the best expression for an idea. When I spoke to Richard Whitely, Head of the Glass Workshop at the Canberra School of Art recently he astutely observed that, “Jones is an artist first” and “glass is part of her vocabulary.” She moves between areas of practice and applies visual language in different contexts. Like the ‘renaissance man,' Jones is multi skilled and works across disciplines.

She works both independently and collaboratively in order to achieve goals and make a living. Jones is also consistent in her artistic concerns and eliminates extraneous detail to focus on the essential, producing a characteristically clean look. She honours the quality and integrity of materials and the same approach is applied in each of the fields in which Jones works: as a public artist, as a craft worker, production designer and studio artist. Each work is a quest to find the visual mix that sings; one that resonates and whispers her message, ‘Contemplate,' quietly to the audience. Operating across different areas of practice, Jones is bound to attract labels that seek to: define and ‘brand' her art, package her as an artist by designating specific roles or theorising her process and methodology. But such tags imply limits and the vision and integrity intrinsic to Jones' practice are transcendent and enduring.

Quote from the Jam Factory website, accessed 15 December 2004 , http://www.jamfactory.com.au/glass/

Ibid

Ann McMahon is a freelance writer and Contributing Editor-Craft for Artlook, she teaches at the Canberra Institute of Technology and works as an arts officer for Arts and Recreation Training ACT.

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