SCA glass student wins 2008 Vicki Torr Memorial Prize

January 2008

Glass artist Lee Mathers has won a peer award, a place in a competitive graduate exhibition and a residency in Scotland all in the space of a few months.

Glass features prominently in both the display and in the manufacture of keepsake objects. Glass objects, such as bottles, snow domes and paperweights, have been used to store the past and to keep safe memories. Lee Mathers’ work explores how people have been fascinated throughout history with the notion of keepsakes or mementos, and why certain objects become embodied with powerful emotions associated to past events.

Building on the pre-existing relationship of glass to memory, Lee’s work expands and etches the moment in a large glass water drop. Instead of falling and dispersing, the drop is frozen; an image is etched and stored providing an invitation to the viewer to un-tap their own memories.

Lee’s beautiful and technically proficient objects are capturing a lot of attention in the design world. Lee was awarded the 2008 Vicki Torr Memorial Prize for her work Memory Taps during the Ausglass exhibition and conference in Canberra earlier this year. She was one of three designers chosen from a field of 100 nominees for the Object Gallery’s Design Now! graduate showcase exhibition. Lee has also been offered a six-week kiln forming and casting residency at North Lands Creative Glass Centre in Lybster, Scotland, supported by the Scottish Arts Council, which she will undertake in April/May.

Image (top):Lee Mathers, Memory Taps, 3D sub-surface laser etched optical glass, Copper Tap, MDF, 2007

Image (bottom): Lee Mathers, Memory Taps, detail, 2007