Andrea Spencer’s Painstakingly Layered Glass Sculptures Intertwine Tendrils of Seaweed

While a seaweed known as bladderwrack might not sound like something you’d want to eat, the unique kelp is in fact quite tasty and gets its name from small air pockets in its leaves akin to tiny bladders. For glass artist Andrea Spencer, the tendrils, bulbs, fronds, and combinations of organisms provide the starting point for an ongoing series of elegant sculptures.

Just inland of the rugged North Antrim coastline in Northern Ireland, Spencer and her husband, glassblower Scott Benefield, work in studios set up in outbuildings of a former farm. “My process usually starts with collecting or recalling something seen or found in the natural world,” Spencer says. “This becomes a point of departure, and I proceed by manipulating and transforming the material: creating, assembling, and arranging forms.” Back in her studio, she displays the items she’s collected by suspending or pinning them into layered compositions and capturing them in drawings or glass.

Spencer first became interested in the medium during a two-year program focused on constructed textiles, when her research led her toward stained glass. She became enthralled by the work of John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, and she traveled around England to document as much of their work as she could find. The artist then enrolled in the Architectural Glass program at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Northern Ireland and devoting time to studio work as much as possible.

The challenge of portraying realistic botanicals is matched by Spencer’s interest in physical fragility. “I am intrigued with how the material behaves when it is pushed to the extreme and how glass will display the evidence of that behaviour,” she says. “Often the pieces I make are exceedingly fragile.” The walls of hollow forms can sometimes be as thin as an eggshell, and suspended pieces hang by glass threads less than a millimeter thick.

“My pieces are more than mere botanical or sea life models, though,” she says. Her sculptures often take the form of flowers or foliage found on land, inspired by interactions with light and conceptually linking nature to humanity. “Leaf veining recalls our own circulatory system; a mermaid’s purse becomes a womb,” she says. “The fragility of the natural object aligns with the delicacy of the glass object, which speaks to the perilous aspects of life in general.”

Spencer is currently focused on teaching, preparing work for forthcoming group shows in London and Belfast and designing a custom glass ornament commissioned by a Royal establishment. Keep an eye on the artist’s website and Instagram for updates, and purchase pieces directly from Benefield Spencer Glass Shop.

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