a day out at a glass workshop

This is an outing that's been on my 'must try' list for ages - so at last, a friend and I went to one of the local 'open studio' events, choosing a glass workshop near the Hluboka castle a few kilometres from Ceske Budejovice.
The studio makes all kinds of glass objects, from intricate beads to vases and glasses, to wonderful sculptures. But today we were treated to a brilliant 'performance' by an extraordinarily skilled glass blower. There in front of our eyes came to life birds, shells, and other fabulous creations, seemingly by a flick of a hand, a small touch of a tool, a little puff of breath. I've seen the work of glass artists on film before but nothing compares to the real thing, complete with the heat from the furnace and the scent of the fire.

Czech republic is renowned for its glass, a tradition going back centuries - but most of the well known glass comes from North Bohemia. Not so well known is the fact that Sumava, in the South, also has a rich tradition in glass-making. Here they made what is known as 'forest glass' for example: green-tinged, bubbly stuff, intricately decorated, mostly made during the renaissance and baroque periods (bot perhaps more on the history at some other time).

At lunchtime the owners prepared a veritable feast - you can see on the photo a rusty kind of object which is in fact an outdoor spit-oven: in it was a whole lamb, and there were masses of side dishes and sweet delicacies to go with it. And beer on tap, of course :-)

And then the visitors were able to have a go too. What a treat! Of course this was a special day, but I found out that one can book a whole day for a small group where you can have a go at making glass objects by various methods, and come back the next day to collect the results of your effort - so I am sure I'll be back again: this is a kind of activity that could get addictive....

Nicholas Treadwell Gallery: a hidden jewel

Only a short ferry-hop across the Lipno Lake lies a pretty, small town of Aigen - just over the Austrian border. And if Cesky Krumlov is a supposed centre of art and artists in the South of Bohemia, its close Austrian neighbour might beat it hands down in being more bohemian still, in a truly wonderful, outrageous fashion.
This is because it became the home of a British gallerist, Nicholas Treadwell, who moved his famous British gallery here, of all places - into the back of beyond, where he bought the historic Aigen courthouse and town jail, painted it all pink, inside and outside, and voila!, filled it with his collection of paintings and sculptures in what he calls a 'superhumanist' style. His large, fabulous collection ranges from meticulously over-realistic humans, usually in a state of some surprise or torment, to funny, joky, super-colourful views of life as his artists would see it - mostly again with a thorn in the joke somewhere.
Nicholas Treadwell himself is a charismatic man who clearly loves his life in art, and the artists he represents. Besides art, he indulges in theatre and plays music, an iconoclastic figure who proudly puts on his advertising leaflets a quote from a Guardian critic:
'Nicholas Treadwell has done for fine art, what McDonald has done for haute cuisine'.

If you have a few days in Cesky Krumlov, do take a trip there: it only takes half an hour or so. You drive to the Lipno lake and take a delightful ferry ride, and then on through a deep dark forest (empty of humans or dwellings, as this used to be the 'no-man's land' of the ex-Iron Curtain), descending into Aigen which in itself is worth a trip for its Austrian chocolate-box pretty-ness. How apt for the bad taste which Treadwell so loves :-)

When we got there, we were greeted by the man himself, dressed and coiffured in pink, and although there were only three of us, we were given a 2-hr tour with so much information, detail and anecdotes, that it felt like a huge privilege, a true 'insider' view that you simply don't get anywhere else. Certainly not at the immensely boring and stuck-up, grant-fat Egon Shiele centre gallery in Cesky Krumlov!
More on Nicholas Treadwell and his gallery here: take a look.