Clare Millar
Clare Millar — 'Gourd', 2025
'Gourd' follows a new direction, exploring the possibilities of Bullseye sheet glass as lines and squares, turned and coupled together. Combining murrine to form checkerboards, Gourd explores the quirky and trippy aesthetic of the early 2020s, applying the bright visuals of contemporary fast consumption culture to traditional and slow forms of art making.
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Clare Millar is a writer who fell in love with molten glass in 2019. Since 2021, she has been a regular trainee at Ruth Allen Glass, working with Ruth, Nick Doran Adams and Juniper Maffescioni to hone foundational skills in glassblowing. In 2023 she was a participant in Corey Pemberton’s workshop at the Corning Museum of Glass, and Tom Rowney’s cane masterclass at the Jamfactory in 2024. Her practice is centred around writing about proprioception and how the skills of glassblowing come into the body’s subconscious, articulating where the magic happens in glassmaking, and documenting the living history of Australian studio glass. As such, she is working to develop a varied skillset in the field of glass.
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Glass Futures
September 18 – November 1
Glass Futures presents a collection of works produced during an intensive masterclass at r.a.g.e, led by renowned glass artist Giles Bettison and artist-educator Lienors Torre. This body of work showcases how participants engaged with the intricacies of pattern and form in glass, inspired by the centuries-old Venetian tradition of murrine. Working with Bullseye sheet glass rather than traditional furnace glass, participants developed a contemporary take on this technique under Bettison’s tutelage. Once vessels were formed in the hot shop, Torre introduced various coldworking processes, allowing for intricate surface refinement and the elevation of each work to a new level of clarity and expression.
At its heart, Glass Futures is a dialogue between tradition and innovation. Anchored in the lineage of Australian studio glass, this exhibition celebrates the transfer of material knowledge to a new generation of makers. The resulting works embody the rhythm of process — layered, fused, shaped and carved — revealing glass as a medium that is at once enigmatic and precise.
For participants at different stages in their careers, this masterclass was both a technical and artistic threshold: an invitation to refine skill whilst articulating an individual voice. Together, the works in Glass Futures testify to the vitality of independent glass education in Australia, offering a glimpse into the bold and evolving future of the medium.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, as well as generous support from Bullseye Glass, Craft Victoria, and r.a.g.e.
Artist List – Eva Alisic, Ruth Allen, Giles Bettison, Laura de Carteret, Nick Doran Adams, Cheryl Edwards, Juniper Maffescioni, Clare Millar, Elizabeth Parsons, Nicole Polentas, Michelle Stewart, Lienors Torre, Keely Varmalis
Read more about the exhibition here:
Material: Bullseye murrini glass, blown and sandblasted
Dimensions: Approx. 17 x 9 x 7cm
Please note when purchasing, exhibition works are to be collected when exhibition closes.
Shipping costs may be estimates. Please feel free to contact shop@craft.org.au who will be available to provide an Art Courier quote or shipping costs for larger items.