From little things big things grow and when Mark Hewson made a stained glass window for his new home in Torbay back in the early 1980s he was unaware that it would mark the beginning of a career that would span more than 40 years.
Mark, and his equally-talented wife, Paris Johansen, have now designed, sculptured, moulded and soldered literally thousands of glass artworks.
Originally having had no formal art training the couple, who’ve been married nearly five decades, began to rediscover their mutual and longtime love of drawing. And, as interest in Mark’s work grew, he started to focus on commercial projects while Paris fed her creativity by creating all manner of glass works for home and garden adornment.
“I remember one of my school teachers saying I was never going to make a living out of art so I better go and pursue another career. The glass work doesn’t make me rich but it pays the bills and I do enjoy it because people respect me as an artist. It’s taken 40 years to become an overnight success!” Mark says, laughing.
You just need to consider Mark’s long list of public art commissions to see just how wrong that teacher was. Mark has produced large-scale works for the Albany Justice Centre, Perth’s St John of God Hospital and for numerous other public buildings around the State. He’s also worked alongside renowned WA sculptor Robert Juniper and Paris has also worked closely with her husband on many of the commissioned works.
“One of the largest and most challenging commissions was glass installations for a large regional health campus. One of the works is 50 metres long and incorporates 21 different varieties of local birds. Due to countless changes by the architects and building construction delays the project took two and a half years to complete.”
Mark is now constantly busy and always has a very long list of private commissions waiting to be done and says, “the artist’s life is always one of feast or famine” and that receiving a Sir Winston Churchill Fellowship grant back in 2006 was a definite turning point in his artistic development.
The highly-prized fellowship enabled Mark and Paris to undertake a four-month international study tour that took them to Iceland, Norway, Spain and Germany.
Since the Fellowship Tour, Mark and Paris have travelled to the USA, New Zealand and Venice to attend international glass conferences and each time they’ve expanded their knowledge and appreciation for their craft.
Mark and Paris’ creations now include a wide range of functional, decorative, sculptural and architectural pieces using a variety of methods and their large studio features all the equipment and components needed for copper foiling, painting, fusing, casting and slumping glass.
It’s clear to see that this couple’s love of glass (and each other) is still very much at the forefront of what they do and Paris says they both revel in the fact that glass enables them to be very organic with their creations.
“There’s something quite magical about working with glass as you’re also working with light,” Paris says.
“You’re not bound by straight lines or flat surfaces and the way light catches glass, and the reflections it generates, means it’s a material that just keeps on giving.”
