Warmest Invitation to the Polish Glassblower Symposium
3. - 4. April 2025
We are very much looking forward to this year's meeting from April 3rd - 4th at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw.
Once again, many Polish glassblowers from the fields of borosilicate, quartz and art glass will be represented. Maybe it is also of interest to you to get to know us better, work with us, exchange experiences or simply share your knowledge. In any case, we are very much looking forward to seeing you. In the following, I will tell you the story of our meetings, how they came about and why they are so important to us.
The idea of creating a Facebook group, which led to the organization of meetings and eventually to the creation of a Polish glassblowing band, had little to do with me at first. For me, glassblowing was, first and foremost, synonymous with loneliness. No contact with other colleagues, and only few opportunities to educate myself or to learn something, gave me the feeling of being alone and standing still. Because of this, my first stays abroad were purely selfish. My focus was on finding answers to technical questions. When I discovered that our profession was about getting to know people in order to be able to develop myself, I had the feeling that I had freed myself as a skilled worker. Today, for me, glassblowing undisputedly means getting to know people and being able to develop my techniques with them. Because it was precisely building these contacts abroad that gave me and my profession the meaning and purpose.
The First Meeting in Poland
This is how the first meeting in Poland, which took place at Jarosław Krajnik's glassblowing workshop at the University of Toruń (Jaroslaw and I have already been to several VDG conferences together), was inspired. It was organized by a friend who works at the University of Southampton, whose workshop I was able to visit to learn a lot of new things. Here, 10 glassblowers from all disciplines and from a wide variety of places met for one day, working at tables in front of the flame and exchanging ideas, punctuated by a lot of fun.
My foreign colleagues had a clear goal in mind and I just watched at first, but a sense of obligation arose in me to want to further develop this path to joint meetings.
So I stuck with it, even though I lost twice in a row against COVID and the ban on gatherings. When I ran out of strength, fate stretched out its hand. The breakthrough came in the stained glass studio of the University of Toruń, which organized exhibitions for the International Year of Glass. Now people who had previously only known each other from the Internet could finally meet in person again, and they trusted each other. What a motivating meeting it was! A motivation filled with the desire to continue using this incredibly positive atmosphere that was born in Toruń. We thought what a loss it would be to lose such a stirring energy.
To do is better than to wish
In order to be able to implement this wish, we had to take the steering wheel into our own hands. Because as already described at the beginning: You can't have a vision if you don't try it out and experience it yourself. We made many attempts to organize another event like the one in Toruń in 2022. We tried to cooperate with various institutions, which led to several failures. Kamila Mróz, an employee of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, convinced the university authorities to accept us and provide premises. This is how our collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts began.
If someone is asking themselves, what is waiting for them at the Symposium
I never thought about it. If I thought about it, I probably wouldn't do anything. It's good to start at the bottom, because then everything will be a success. We have participants who have participated in glassblowing events in different parts of the world and contribute to our event by sharing their experiences. They don't expect, they just set up this event. There are also those for whom this is completely new and who, like me, do not know what to expect.
The Meetings grow time to time
People who want to do more will always be found, and so it happened this time. Of course, some responsibilities have been transferred to individuals. But more importantly, people took action on their own initiative. I'm very happy about it, because being in the company of people who don't ask what they're going to get out of it, but what they can give to make something better, is the most motivating thing ever.
We are constantly working on the program, we try to show each other interesting things. We have a great diversity because we have apparatus builders, artists and neon glassblowers with us.
A year ago, we even used the glass workshop for our visitors to be able to broaden all our horizons.
This year, however, I would like to shorten the program part and expand the area of free design and discussion. Because I think a format where one person works and the rest watches is not as efficient as the "open burner area", where many people work at the same time and talk and talk to each other, like a picnic blowing glass. Additionally, more lathes will be used, because we have a manufacturer of lathes among us. We plan to use this for a small competition and to shoot a promotional video for social media. But I won't give too much away, it's better if you come.
So I hereby formally and warmly
invite you to Breslau.
From the 03rd to the 04th of April 2025
At the Academy of Fine Arts
More Information on Facebook
Invitation in polish (Pdf Download)
Further reports on our Polish colleagues that have already been published can be found:
· „Polen, die Glasapparatebläserei der Universität Danzig“, in Issue 3/2020
· „Mit dabei, eine Woche in Polen zum gemeinsamen Austausch und auf dem Treffen des polnischen Glasbläserverbandes“, in Issue 2/2024
This Article was translated to Polish by Piotr Leszczynski and to English by Emily Reynolds and can therefore be found in three languages.
