Hot kitchens and cool coasters in Clerkenwell!
It was a serendipitous moment the day I opened my emails and found a link to the London Design Festival and a wide variety of workshops being run to demonstrate just how artisans make what they make. The one that caught my eye as a keen enameller was at Senso gallery in Old Street, in the showrooms of VLAZE and A J Wells who have partnered up in a project to create enamelled outdoor kitchens. This is enamelling on a huge scale compared to what I do, and I was much intrigued to learn more. Luckily for me they were running workshops to "have a go" at enamelling a coaster, and this presented an idea opportunity to see and learn more. I enlisted a couple of my evening class students to come along with me, so Anousheh and Danielle and I duly turned up for our afternoon session full of expectation at the opportunity to try something new.
Anyone who has travelled the underground in London will have wittingly or unwittingly seen the work of A J Wells who based in the Isle of Wight are the makers and purveyors of all the enamelled signage on the London Underground Tube stations (for instance the iconic large round red circular panels with the name of the station running across the middle, as well as every sign that shows you the underground lines on each platform, for north, south , east and west bound trains.) Enamel is a very durable, hard wearing, long lived, and easy to clean surface and therefore ideal for these purposes, and so really well suited to kitchens too or the same reason.
And oh the colours!
We arrived at the pine perfumed new VLAZE showroom to be enthusiastically greeted by Matthew Langridge and Ced Wells and a very hot kiln ready and waiting, sitting on the most beautiful enamelled kitchen surface, an ocean of deep aqua and blue, with bevelled edges - a culinary monument in vitreous enamelled steel (and no underground lines or directions in sight!). We were informed that the sheer scale of the enamel required to make these work surfaces requires a huge conveyor-belt-style kiln where items can be rolled into the heat to be fired.
We were swiftly encouraged to make our own coasters working on pre-enamelled, pre-silk-screened squares of white steel with a curved edge (not unlike the white background enamel on the underground signs but a lot smaller!) and provided with pointed skewers to scratch away a design of our own into the screened layer using a technique called "S'Grafitto" .The world was our oyster..... we set to work and produced horses, poppies, floral and patterned designs, lettering, botanical drawings and sponged marks using a mixture of enamel powder and pine oil (Aha! the culprit of the perfume pervading the room in the heat of the kiln!)
Having kept Matthew and Ced talking for quite some time, we were inadvertedly (and perhaps intentionally?) carried away in the creativity of the session and made 2 or 3 coasters each. We were completely delighted of course, whilst discussing how the enamel was sprayed and applied onto larger pieces in their factory, and a differing range of effects that can be created by altering the application of what is "wet enamel" which is different to the powdered enamel I am more familiar with using on a smaller scale, and how the steel shapes were prepared before enamelling. We were told these kitchens are weather proof too, and so ideal for indoor or outdoor use as they don't rust or swell in the rain like wooden kitchen surfaces would.
We SO enjoyed our Thursday afternoon enamelling jolly and will be keenly looking out for the next opportunity to extend our coaster collection to a complete set! More to come we hope! Thank you for an educational, fun, informative and inspiring afternoon, two great blokes and some fabulous kitchens is a winning combination!
If you can't stand the heat in your kitchen, perhaps relocate it outside? What a great idea!
If you'd like to learn to enamel (the art of applying powdered glass and kiln fusing it onto the surface of metal) I run regular beginners day courses at Rainbow Glass Studios in Stoke Newington London N16. See my courses page for more information and forthcoming dates https://www.jewelleryboat.com/the-jewellery-boat-at-rainbow-glass
It would be lovely to show you how it's done!
Eleanor : Tutor: Enamelling and Fused Glass at Rainbow Glass Studios
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