Plymouth College of Art   2008/2009

Fabrizia Bazzo

At the start of the scheme, I followed my original plan, which was to take advantage of the print-making facilities and carried out various tests on photo-sensitive films suitable for use as resists for sandblasting images onto glass and I also spent some time screen-printing onto glass using enamels. Although I would have liked to have spent more time at the college in the screen-printing room, it was impractical to have to bring the printed sheets of glass home for firing. Instead, I have just used the facilities to prepare the screens at the college and then to do the actual printing and subsequent firing of the glass at home. Irrespective of this, the time spent on the scheme has been really useful in allowing me to evaluate whether the concepts of printing onto glass are something that I want to pursue in the future and to give me an idea of what investments I will have to make in tools, materials and facilities. Although I had never expected or planned to actually produce any finished work during the scheme, I soon became intrigued to work out how I could make use of some of the prints I had made in some way. I decided that they would be useful materials for creating composite objects by laminating and bonding – two techniques that I have also been recently practising – and these composite works were exhibited at The Devon Guild of Craftsmen in April as part of the exhibition “Re-Route”, showcasing work produced by the Fellows of the Contemporary Craft Fellowship Scheme.

Overall, it took a while for clear ideas of new work generated by the residency to start to gel and, despite the long journey to the college, it was time well spent, since being in a creative environment and sharing the company and experiences of the other artists on the scheme will, inevitably, produce new and exciting sparks to be developed in the future. The realisation of an idea must never be limited by the techniques available or known or I will never have the space in which to grow.