"You can't call yourself a glass blower until you have burnt yourself," says Peter, and he should know. Starting out as studio potter, he was teaching ceramics in the USA at the beginning of the studio glass movement back in the early 1960s. He participated in a glass workshop and was hooked.

 

"We just started experimenting. It was all very haphazard," he says, recounting tales of his terrible burns and escapes from far worse ones. Up to that time, the secrets of glass making were confined to the factory floor. Although the fundamental techniques of glass blowing have not changed for thousands of years, it has taken time for studios glass-makers to rediscover the lost art.

 

It is difficult to appreciate just how hot and intensely physical it feels simply to observe a glass blowing workshop, let alone practice yourself. London Glassblowing has two glass blowers making up to six pieces a day.

 

Peter is known for the incredibly vivid colours in his work, creating contemporary pieces with a traditional feel. The colours are built up in layers - one glass blower begins with the base colour, then another heats the next colour and trails it over the base, and so on.

 

Peter's work is inspired by his globetrotting - the Mirage series depicts his desert travels, while Floral, Landscape and Reef pay tribute to Peter's love of the natural world.

 

His training as a potter brings an extraordinary tactile quality to his work. Although his pieces are made of glass, they exude strength rather than fragility, engaging the onlooker.

 

Next year is the 30th anniversary of Peter's studio, which has been based in London for the past 10, and he is planning a programme of events to celibrate.

 

He says: "My affair with glass is like being in love - it started off with lust and we've ended up
companions. I never get tired of it."

 

 

Yasmine Chinwala, December 2005