Glass festival adds a shimmer to summer

THE ninth annual Festival of Glass will add a shimmer to summer in the north Bellarine this weekend, boasting festival favourites and fresh features.

International visiting artists Davide Penso, from Italy, and Cèdric Ginart and Karina Guevin, from Canada, will display spectacular blowing and sculpting of glass during “Twilight Flames”, which will be held at The Range, Curlewis, this Saturday February 16 at 7pm.

Davide, Cèdric and Karina will also demonstrate their extraordinary creativity at the Festival Expo at Drysdale’s Christian College this Sunday February 17 between 10am and 4pm.

Up to 5,000 visitors are expected to see almost 50 stalls featuring glass art, sculpture, jewellery, mosaics and homewares; the Glass Art Awards; and the draw for the Festival’s Treasure Hunt, which attracted a record 33 North Bellarine businesses and dozens of unique glass art prizes.

The 2019 festival includes a greater number and diversity of glass art classes than before, spanning beginners and experienced artists.

Drysdale’s Café Zoo is the venue for three fresh festival features.

First, Cèdric and Karina will run a borosilicate glass workshop “More is better” until February 15 – a festival first, the event responds to artists’ requests for such workshops.

Then Cèdric and Karina will create complex (and quirky) glass goblets at “Torch and Talk”, which will be held on Monday February 18 between 5.30pm and 7.30pm.

Finally, Davide will run a unique event – a fourday “Jewellery Lab” between February 21 and
24, where people of all skills can create stunning, unique jewellery to show off to friends and family at a gala evening.

Meanwhile, clinking bottles and gasps of surprise came from the fourth annual Historic Bottle Evaluation on Sunday.

The Bellarine Historical Society and ABCR Auctions invited people to bring in any old bottles for experienced glass valuers David Bruce and Travis Dunne to appraise and value.

David Bruce said, “This year’s standout item was a Black Horse Ale bottle, produced around 1860 by the Kent Brewery in Sydney that today is worth between $600 – $700.”

For more information visit festivalofglass.net.au or find the festival on Facebook.