Hindmarsh Prize 2017

ALEXANDRA CHAMBERS BOBBY PINS
Glass is always a challenging and technical
material; I like to make multiples as an exercise
in practice and technique.
Originally from the United States, Alexandra
Chambers has been working in glass for 21 years.
She graduated with an undergraduate degree from
the ANU School of Art & Design glass workshop in
2001.
Residing in Captains Flat with her partner,
glassblower Tom Rowney, and their two children,
Alexandra works out of her home studio and at the
Canberra Glassworks. She regularly works with
blown glass and assists artists in the hotshop, and is
also a skilled flameworker.
Alexandra’s work consists of sculptural and
humorous concepts, focusing on the idea of
capturing moments in time with the rapid
advancement of technology in our generation.
This particular work is about the lone bobby-pin
and its adept way of finding itself almost everywhere
humans roam. Shopping centres, the gym, change
rooms, parking lots. Bobby-pins can be quite
a dismissed, discarded, disposable item. Here
Alexandra has made 100 of them to preserve the
lost and found bobby-pins of the world.
I enjoy making glass on my torch, a meditative process I
can enjoy on my own. Glass is always a challenging and
technical material, I like to make multiples as an exercise
in practice and technique.
Alexandra teaches glass blowing both nationally
and internationally. She has worked as a teaching
assistant at Pilchuck Glass School, and Northlands
Creative Glass; co-taught with Tom Rowney over
the last 15 years at Vetroricerca Glas and Modern,
Eugene Glass School, and the Jam Factory. She has
also taught at the ANU School of Art & Design,
the Canberra Glassworks, and is currently teaching
glassblowing at Sydney College of the Arts.
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