Jenny Ayrton's Cast Glass Miniatures: Everyday Scenes That Look Like Ice

At first glance they look like blocks of ice with a winter scene frozen inside: a street lamp, a washing line, a little red boat. In fact they are solid cast glass. Devon glass artist Jenny Ayrton builds tiny wire scenes from everyday life and sets them in molten glass, turning ordinary moments into miniature worlds.

Jenny Ayrton, a glass artist from Devon

Ayrton lives and works in Devon, in South West England. Her interest in glass began at about twelve, when she spent a day in a stained-glass studio run by a friend of her uncle. About a decade later she went to art college and chose cast glass as her medium.

In 2014 she was selected for the Crafts Council's Hothouse scheme, which supports makers setting up their practice, and for Get Fresh at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen. Her work has been shown in galleries from St Ives in Cornwall to Ambleside in Cumbria. She once said her work "sits slightly awkwardly between art and craft".

How the miniature glass scenes are made

Every piece starts small and at home. Ayrton told Eternal Tools in a 2014 interview with Eternal Tools that she makes tiny wire sketches and models in her sitting room, and works in a garden studio she called "little more than a very cluttered shed".

1. Wire sketch: the scene is drawn in three dimensions with fine wire: a tree, a bench, a line of posts.
2. Sand casting: about once a month she rents time at Teign Valley Glass, a commercial glass-blowing studio, where impressions are pressed into sand with simple tools and molten glass at around 1,100 °C is poured over the wire. She calls it "a real adrenaline rush".
3. Cold working: the cooled block is ground on a flatbed grinder and polished on a wheel.
4. Finishing: final details are added with a pendant drill and diamond engraving tips.

The sand leaves a rough, frosty skin on the outside of the glass, while the inside stays clear. That contrast is what makes the pieces look so much like ice.

Everyday scenes: washing lines, benches and boats

Ayrton's subjects come from walks and daily life. She has described the moments that spark a piece: "a washing line blowing wildly on the first day of spring", "an unknown couple on a park bench", "a door ajar". The Contemporary Glass Society lists works including Washing Day, Afloat, Bench with a View, Camping Trip and Playground Bookends.

The scenes stay deliberately spare. A bench and a tree are enough to suggest a favourite park; a small tent beside a branching tree is enough to suggest a whole camping trip. The clear glass around the wire does the work of air, water or snow.

Jenny Ayrton at work

A short film by R&A Collaborations followed Ayrton through her process, from wire models to the moment the glass is poured.

Turn one of these pieces in the light and the scene changes: reflections move, edges blur and the wire seems to float. If you like art that plays with the look of ice and snow, compare these lasting glass worlds with animal sculptures made from snow or Changchun’s Marilyn Monroe snow portrait.

Related reading

• Marilyn Monroe Drawn in Snow: An Overhead Portrait in Changchun
• Simon Beck’s Snow Dragon: Drawing with Footprints
• Faust’s Snow Lettering: Temporary Calligraphy on New York Cars
• Semyon Bukharin’s Snow Drawings in an Izhevsk Schoolyard
• Jim Denevan’s 2010 Lake Baikal Snow Circles: Geometry on a Frozen Lake

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