ARTIFACT: The glass art of Benjamin Kikkert is inspired by industrial forms encrusted with life.
Brandon Wei 24 Dec 2020 | Hakai Magazine
Brandon Wei is a journalist based in Vancouver, B.C., and graduate of the UBC School of Journalism. He is a fellow at Hakai Magazine. SHARES What might seem a seasonal ornament is actually a homage to fishing float flotsam found on a Newfoundland beach. Glassblower Benjamin Kikkert says making it involved a ‘marvelously complicated’ four-stage process with hot sculpted glass. He made the original vessel, cooled it, wove a copper net around it, melted ‘the seaweed bits’ to it, heated the sphere up slowly, and placed onto it the glass ‘barnacles’ made one at a time. ‘I was going for the integrity of the object,’ says Kikkert. ‘Not the purpose.’