![]() Her review of season 1 of Blown Away was published in the November/December 2019 issue of Crafts. Teleri Lloyd-Jones is a writer and editorial manager at Central Saint Martins. Though the format enforces competition, one hopes that, through depicting different ways of thinking and making, it is the craft itself that is the winner. Blown Away celebrates victory over technique or clarity of concept, but also demonstrates that a glassblower who can create a compelling art installation might not be the best equipped to create a flawlessly functional wine glass and decanter. But the secret ignored here is that craft isn’t about range, it is the opposite: it is about doing a thing well. We see creative ideologies and personalities placed in contrast throughout. Tasks range wildly from Pop Art homages and functioning light fittings to robots for an unknown future. ![]() Deborah Czeresko makes several brave choices, creating a womb for men designed for a future of equal opportunities childbearing, or responding to a botany-themed challenge with an arrangement of sprouting potatoes. Memorable moments often come from the conceptualists, such as Leah Kudel and her decanter for a dancing drinker, designed to be attached to your belt while the glass sits in your cleavage. Was Blown Away filmed during Covid Filming took place in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill. The work is sometimes stunningly beautiful and other times stupendously hideous, sometimes thought-provoking and other times tone-deaf. There is diversity of approach among the contestants: some prefer the functional, while others are more conceptual. It’s a striking contrast one finds at the heart of much contemporary craft, as objects go from the studio’s dirt – all that embedded connection and context – into the blankness and blandness of a white cube. Within the hot shop is a pristine white box: the gallery where finished pieces are revealed at the end of each episode. Filming began in late summer 2021 and wrapped up in November 2021. The place is located just an hour drive southwest of Toronto. It’s a space originally made for a previous era of manufacturing, reborn as a craft performance space. Blown Away Season 3 was filmed inside Hamilton, Ontario, Canada like the previous two seasons. The making takes place in a huge post-industrial building in Ontario, kitted out to be the largest glassblowing studio in North America. Accidents happen – in the first episode there is not one but two – and they are satisfyingly dramatic in a hot shop. You soon realise that the format is unforgiving on an unfortunate breakage or misguided concept. It’s breathless for those accustomed to comparable but more leisurely hour-long programmes. Gray is an insightful guide and level-headed resident judge, off-set by the perky, mildly irritating presenter Nick Uhas.Įach episode is just over 20 minutes long. The technical basics are covered at the start of each episode, and when something more intricate, such as reticello – an Italian decorative technique characterised by a fine netting of threads – rears its head, Katherine Gray, glass artist and associate professor at California State University, is on hand.
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