Bowl - 'Bowl for Morgan Le Fay'

This deep, circular bowl is called a 'Crucible' by Robinson after the name of a vessel used since English Medieval times to melt and calcinate substances requiring a high degree of heat. Crucibles are usually made of very refractory material such as porcelain which can withstand very high temperatures. In Arthurian legend, Morgan le Fay is a powerful sorceress and antagonist of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. In naming her bowl, Robinson has created a vessel suitable for a medieval enchantress. This and another similar bowl remind Robinson of 'Celtic metal bowls with jewels set around the lip.' The process of making the coloured 'jewels' used in these bowls was to separately cast coloured, rounded domes, grind them and then place them into the holes around the rim, 'in the manner of stoppers in a perfume bottle.' By 1995, Robinson was working exclusively with 45% crystal glass which she found provided her with more reliable castings than her earlier experiments with different percentages of the raw material. At the time she developed her Crucible and Scallop bowl forms Robinson began to explore a more diverse range of colours in her work, particularly colours which reflected her love of the New Zealand landscape. In 1995 she stated: 'This [the New Zealand light] is reflected in my work. Sharp, clear, start, even hard, colours: strong sun yellows, yelllow green forest, dark copper blue evening skies, light blue summer skies, deep blue/green seas.' [Ann Robinson in conversation with Curator Laurence Fearnley, 1995 - unpublished] Bowl forms are very significant in Ann Robinson's practise. In 1993 she stated: 'The bowl for me is a timeless form with multiple levels of meaning. The bowl evokes all it has historically been - from the earliest mortar, through ritual and religious bowls, to the bowls that talk to satellites. The receiver, the holder, the protector, the offerer and the transmitter.' (Ann Robinson artist statement, Treasures of the Underworld, Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, 1993) Ann Robinson studied glassblowing at Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 1980. She then joined glassblowers John Croucher and Garry Nash in founding Sunbeam Glassworks, one of New Zealand's early glass studios, in 1981. Following that she turned to casting glass, drawing on the bronze casting she had learned while at Elam Art School. Over the last two decades, Ann Robinson has perfect the technique of glass casting to become one of the world's finest exponents of the craft.