19 February 2021
Designer Spotlight: Arcadian Reflections
COMING SOON TO MADEIT: Pop 21st February in your diary to check back and see Arcadian Reflections and more Australian glass artists exhibiting their glass wares as part of the 2021 Festival of Glass Expo:
Festival of Glass Jewellery
Festival of Glass Homewares & Sculpture
I’m Diane Schofield, the glass artist behind Arcadian Reflections. I am now retired so I have started exploring the long-term dreams about having more time for the garden, working with wood and other crafts. The Drysdale Festival of Glass showed me another sort of medium that I liked, and I found a little niche with mosaics that suited my interests. My husband is very supportive, but our two dogs do complain about not getting enough attention.
As my husband says, “we once had a garage for cars”, but it has now been taken over by my projects - long-term and short. I have a table for small mosaic work, with tubs of many coloured and types of tesserae on various shelving arrangements. Other parts of the garage store wood and tools for cutting and preparing bases etc., for my mosaics, and other projects. I guess, I can now call the garage a studio!
When I first began doing mosaics, I started seeing potential mosaic bases everywhere, but I have calmed down now. I enjoy working with animal shapes, 2D and 3D, especially if I can create something a bit quirky. I would like to create more mosaics pieces that are suitable for garden and community art.
I always felt that I wasn’t artistic – even my stick figures are at a very childish standard, but I enjoy working with wood, clay, and now mosaics. I’ve realised that I enjoy the tactile nature of these media. I also like the fact that with mosaics, I don’t have to be as precise and artistically accurate, so I can create an expanding range of ideas, as I develop the skills to achieve them.
I have always liked handmade items because of the unique nature of the pieces. Many handmade items are made from natural materials, and the love of the craft. I love to see young children creating things from all sorts of materials, using their great imagination, which is unfortunately often squashed by adult’s expectations of what is the correct way of doing something. Imagination and creativity should be allowed to expand as far as they can, without being dampened.
Creating my mosaic items is fun, but I don’t enjoy setting up at outdoor markets in the hope that I can sell my work. Madeit allows me to operate in a large market platform that is open all of the time.
COMING SOON! Save February 21 in your diary to visit Arcadian Reflections and more Australian exhibitors in the virtual 2021 Festival of Glass Expo on Madeit:
Festival of Glass Jewellery
Festival of Glass Homewares & Sculptures
