Figurative crystal glass sculpture 'Shield'

'Shield' is an excellent example of Ann Robinson's move into more figurative works in the late 1990s. Beginning with her renowned three-dimensional flax pod castings, her first attempts at large horizontal castings, Robinson began experimenting with more figurative forms, mainly based on the natural world viewed from her Kare Kare studio windows. 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.