Gravity Drops, a glass blowing carafe designed by Vanessa Mitrani makes an ingenious use of balance from its wooden base.
Gravity Drops, a glass blowing carafe designed by Vanessa Mitrani makes an ingenious use of balance from its wooden base.
“Gathered” by using a long rod, or cane, in the furnace where it is melted, the glass never stops flowing. In order to get the right amount to be blown, the rod must be continuously turned so as to avoid the gathered glass leaking onto the ground.
It was by trying out the technique and by carefully watching the best artisans that Vanessa Mitrani has developed her creative language. An earthenware designer, often more concerned with the «doing» rather than with the «look», the designer has developed several techniques to give glass a strong voice. The «constraint» involves blowing the material into rigid straightjackets to bring fluidity to light. This may resemble the traditional Venetian blowing techniques, used to manufacture glass lamps surrounded by metal, but it is just the notion of constraint that makes the difference.
In Vanessa Mitrani’s work, the glass is confined only to allow it to better escape. The «footprint» involves blowing the glass into models created so as to leave a certain footprint in which a shape will be placed. Gravity Drops is the result of this technique. Blown into a mould model, the carafe’s base is then deformed using a cross-shaped tool similar to its future wooden base shaped before it is heated again to finish its neck. The carafe was made in the Portuguese workshops, Vanessa Mitrani’s partners. The wooden base was made in France by a Living Heritage Company with pinpoint precision to provide rigid support for the carafe. The contrast effect of the materials and opacity of the base and its container intensifies the feeling that the carafe « flows», like the glass just «gathered» from the furnace.
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