Getting there by the quickest way slowly is how Kate Jones describes her art. It neatly sums up what’s needed – patience, certainly, and also a determination to stick at it, and an appetite to learn the craft.

There are no short cuts in this business, because Kate and her partner Stephen Gillies are involved in pushing the traditional art of glassblowing to new levels. Their latest show, at the Ryedale Folk Museum, will present some of their latest work in a gallery setting, with photographs illustrating the process by Tony Bartholomew.

Kate says the show will be a welcome chance for the Gillies Jones enterprise to take a step back and examine how their work has evolved. The quickest way slowly for them has involved a 15-year journey in business, always pushing the limits of the craft. And to do that, you must first serve your time in the old ways.

Kate and Stephen served old fashioned apprenticeships, which included travelling to Switzerland, Denmark and the US to learn more. Then they set up shop, and their choice of Rosedale for a base again echoed the past: the Rosedale area was a centre for glassmaking as long ago as the 17th century.

At first Gillies Jones turned out a range of different blown glass items. But over time they have refined their work to focus on the one thing that continues to fascinate them and draw them to experiment: bowls. Their latest designs involve sending experimental vessels to Stourbridge to be have openings cut in them before returning to Rosedale for further design work. Kate explains: ‘It’s about vessels, a container for ideas, literal and metaphorical. Glass is a material of contradictions – it’s fragile, yet strong. Spun glass has a tensile strength greater than steel. It’s transparent, yet opaque.’

She wants to draw attention to this material that we all use every day and ‘see but don’t see’. Not only is it widely used in household goods, but glass has come into its own as a 21st century communications medium, via the fibre optics that carry broadband.

Sadly though, as practical uses for glass increase, it is losing its place in the art world. Glass blowers are a rarity today, and Kate fears the skill is dying out. Partly, she thinks, that is because of the total commitment needed to do it. ‘It is a 10-year learning curve to get good at it and you have to put in that investment to get results,’ she says. Once the furnace starts blasting out its heat, the glassblower must work with it. ‘It’s all or nothing, you can’t compromise.’ Happily, in this rural niche the ideas and the vessels are in good shape.

Bounded Space: Blown Glass Vessels is part of Ryedale Folk Museum’s Fired Arts series. It runs from 8 August to 11 October with a special event on 19 September.
Home page pic: Tony Bartholomew