It’s a long way from the small town of Carnarvon in WA’s Gascoyne region to the picturesque Italian city of Venice. But that’s exactly where WA glass-artist Sabrina Dowling Guidici will be heading this September.

Sabrina is the only Australian to be exhibiting at this year’s prestigious Venice Glass Week where she’ll showcase a unique glasswork collection titled ‘Saltwaters’. The 16-piece collection has been inspired by seagrasses found in WA’s World Heritage Site of Shark Bay and pays homage to their vital importance for healthy ecosystems. 

Sabrina’s pieces are sure to wow Venetian viewers but they will also provide this Italian-born artist with the chance to start a dialogue about seagrass and using art to tell stories.

When I spoke with Sabrina recently she was hectically busy finalising her pieces for the Venice show. We spoke about her glasswork but also about how she came to gravitate towards this particular creative pathway.

“I’ve come from a family of artisans and I mean that in the traditional Italian sense,” Sabrina begins. “We were makers; makers of practical things. My father worked in copper and his father trained in leather work so he could make the most beautiful shoes.

“The ability to make things is absolutely fundamental to who we are and the first thing you ask yourself when you need something is, ‘can I make it myself?’ I never did art for art’s sake and was told as a child that artists die of hunger.   You’re certainly not going to feed a family, let alone pay a mortgage as an artist.”

Sabrina took this advice and chose what many would consider a safer career by completing a Commerce Degree and later training in enterprise facilitation. When she and her husband started a regional development planning firm Sabrina specialised in supporting creative enterprises within the Gascoyne region. Her goal was to help amateur artists become professionals. And, while she was not yet an artist herself, Sabrina knew that applying a solid business framework was essential to creating a sustainable activity. 

“Four years ago everything changed. After the funeral of a beautiful Elder that I’d had the privilege of working with, I just woke up the following day and decided this was what I was going to do. This is not something that was bubbling inside – it just happened and I took a sharp right hand turn in my life-work.”

That was a mere four years ago and Sabrina says her progress and success with her glasswork is mainly due to being hyper focused. Her knowledge of how to build a viable business has also been invaluable.

“It’s fundamental that I sell my work otherwise I can’t keep going. One of the philosophies that I’ve worked with, and with all the other artists too, is not to use grant money. It’s about pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, taking on commercial contracts and ensuring you create your own working capital to subsidise experimentation.”

There are obviously countless artistic mediums Sabrina could have chosen to specialise in but her love of glass was something that had been sparked at a young age.

“I’ve always loved glass ever since I was a child and when we immigrated to Australia my parents brought an eclectic collection of artistic and craft items with us. It included two small Murano glass birds and I was always fascinated by how light travels through them.”

But it’s not just the beauty of glass that’s captured Sabrina’s imagination as her work is far from being simply art for art’s sake.

“I actually see myself first and foremost as a storyteller. My glass vessels are objects for storytelling; they’re vessels that hold the story. I recount stories from around the Gascoyne region, about the habitats in which we live and our relationships with them.”

Sabrina says seagrass plays an important role in stabilising sediment in waterways and oceans hence it being the inspiration for her current collection.

“When mining companies build jetties and wharfs or disturb the coastline they have an obligation to rehabilitate. Understanding the role that seagrass plays in that is imperative to successful rehabilitation. My glasswork is an opportunity to think about that and I’m essentially inviting people to think about their own behaviours and what they can personally do or the small things they can modify to benefit the environment.”

With the stunning glass art that Sabrina has created there’s no doubt that the light that shines through her work will also throw light on the story of seagrasses.