By Anna Koval
For Roberta Selleck, known as Bobbie, the idea for Emergent Art Glass, an artistic glass jewellery label heavily inspired by nature, emerged from a dissatisfaction with commercially available beads. Her journey to becoming a glass jewellery designer was largely self taught leading her to focus on creating sustainable pieces inspired by everyday life.
Bobbie attended a few studio workshops to learn the basics of working with glass. From there she explored further skills and techniques through Youtube videos and a Learning the Basics Facebook group. Bobbie creates designer pieces, commercial pieces and has created a few floral commission pieces.
Her brand is still emerging, Bobbie describes it as a “work in progress” selling items via her website and local markets.
Sustainability is a key aspect of Emergent Art Glass from the initial inspiration to the materials used to the end life of the pieces. Bobbie’s designs are inspired by the natural environment, she says, “Much of my inspiration is drawn from the natural bush and wildlife around my home, or that I see during my bush walks. From the flash of a twenty-eight parrot, to bees gathering nectar from cascades of wattles or the unique colour and design of gum nut caps. These are incorporated into new designs and pieces.”
The glass used is a sustainable element as it can be recycled, it is enhanced with eco friendly materials such as natural fibres and repurposed glass. The designs use natural materials where practical such as recycled natural fibre for stringing and for the “gum nut” range, materials collected from the bush. Some designs incorporate vintage beads or repurposed glass bottles.
Bobbie’s design process begins with designing the piece on paper and working out how the colours, concepts and components will work together. She describes this as a fun part of her process that is both challenging and rewarding. According to Bobbie designing a new piece is a third inspiration, a third trial and error and a third skill.
The next part of the design process is creating the components over a torch, annealing and then assembling them. Building up a single component can take sixty to ninety minutes and completing it including firing it in the kiln is a two day process. Occasionally the glass will crack in the kiln meaning the process starts again.
The challenge is keeping each piece light enough to wear and resilient to general wear and tear.
Bobbie describes the Emergent Art Glass Eco Fashion Week collection as a showcase of nature’s beauty and man’s place in it. “The collection is a reflection of the impact of man in our world, including the duality of human conflict, AI generated images which morph natural forms through colour and our drive to leave a mark on the environment around us.”
Emergent Art Glass designs are available for purchase via the Emergent Art Glass Shop website.