On a gloomy Sunday in Sale, south Manchester, Hannah Baxendale opens her front door in a red gingham top and polka dot socks. Her welcome is as warm as the cup of tea she immediately offers. Poured into a pair of handmade mugs, of course.

“I’ve given you quite a tame mug actually,” she confesses later. “But I’ve collected mugs from everywhere I’ve travelled and from makers in Manchester, just so I can use them every day.”

Her love of objects stems from a childhood surrounded by items carefully chosen by her parents on their own travels. “The house was just always full of nice, curated things. Things that my parents had been collecting. That’s what made it home, the objects in it.”

The way objects make a home is part of what drew Baxendale to create usable glassware, starting with lamps during her studies and building to a range of objects from familiar tumblers to more unexpected egg cups. “Putting things in homes and making an environment was really interesting to me,” she says. Today, it is the streak of fun that appears in her work and in her approach to creating objects that make her pieces so distinctive.

As we talk, the shelves behind her are filled with a sweetshop array of coloured glass vessels, all adorned with her signature bobbles.

“I don’t know what’s with the bobbles,” she laughingly admits. “I really like spots. And polka dots came in not long ago, but I was doing bobbles way before that.” In fact, part of the appeal is their appearance, but they also speak to Baxendale’s desire to create interactive work.

“It’s the tactility of it, it’s the texture,” she observes. She’s right. The way the bobbles interrupt the smoothness of glass invite you to reach out. Pulling out a vase, Baxendale points out the careful placement of its ladybird-red bobbles. “I like this piece because I’ve been playing around with putting bobbles on places that maybe wouldn’t have bobbles. So I sometimes put them on the top of lips. They’re just like little bugs almost, aren’t they?” 

Bobbles and curves

Baxendale finds inspiration in playing with the glass itself, especially exploring the soft roundness of the material that wants to ooze into molten blobs. During her degree she studied form, diving into the different preferences of men and women. “I remember looking at the example of a Listerine bottle. It’s made for men, that’s why it’s square. Women tend to like curvier and rounded things. So that’s maybe where the bobbles come in as well.”

Baxendale’s process is almost entirely visual.

“I draw a lot and it doesn’t matter if it’s not intended to be a glass form,” she says as she opens her brightly filled sketchbook and flicks through the pages. “Objects, textures, I’ll just start drawing and see how I can translate that into glass.”

She uses a select handful of pencils, a pen, and graphite. “It’s really important what I’m drawing with, the texture of it. I like chunky pencils and then I have this blue pen that’s got a thick tip.”  Pens are chosen for how they feel on the page, or in the hand, and their soft lines echo the rounded curves of her glassware.

Baxendale’s drawn shapes can emerge from the real world or her subconscious. “I have a really vivid, colourful imagination. I dream a lot as well.”

The images in her mind are a swirl of shapes, often rounded, and full of colour, especially pinks, reds, and oranges. “I think at 100 miles per hour just in daily life. So drawing is capturing things before they leave my mind. That’s where my creative process comes to life first, on the page, then in the hot shop [a glassblowing studio].”

In between the page, the hot shop, and the final product there is a fluid, joyous exploration. “There’s a lot of play in my work, having fun and not stressing about things too much. I think that comes into it because I’m not a master of anything, I really embrace wonky things.”

One of the wonky things she pulls off the shelf behind her is a recent commission for a customer – a fat-bellied red goblet for drinking natural wine that lists over as if it’s already a couple of bottles deep itself. “It’s obviously not the straightest thing,” she smiles. “But I really love it for some reason. It’s got so much character and I hope it just brings someone joy when they use it and they think, ‘oh, how silly is that?’.”

Word of mouth

In the past year, Baxendale has begun tutoring at the Manchester Metropolitan University School of Art, helping students in the hot shop as well as supporting them in skills from drawing to glass. She brings her hard-earned lessons back to them, encouraging them to sketch out their visions, be themselves, stay kind, and keep seeking collaborations with others. Her advice to her students hinges on two key approaches: have fun and keep putting yourself out there. “It’s all about word of mouth,” she says. 

People are a vital part of creation for Baxendale, whether it’s a commission or a shared project. “The projects I’m most excited about are collaborations and working with people that inspire me. I’m in awe of what other people do and I want to use their talents as well to make my world even more colourful and vibrant.”

She credits much of her career to the connections she found through her work in hospitality and via the online creative community. It was through an Instagram message that that she became an early member of a new artist collective.

But her success hasn’t just come from interactions with others. To grow her business from the ground up, Baxendale spent a year travelling three hours to and from Birmingham to access a hot shop. She’s still going now, but she gets there a little quicker. More importantly, she is constantly sharing colourful pieces of herself and her work out into the world.

“I’ve given so much glass away for free,” she says with a smile. “I make these little necklaces for all my friends and they work as business cards.” People ask about the glass beads and are directed to Baxendale. But it is more than that. Each bead catching the light on the chain of a necklace is a reflection of how she sees the lucky recipient’s personality and an example of how she approaches the world with a generous authenticity.

“It’s me, it’s expression, and that’s why I don’t feel like I need to be snobby or pretend to be higher than anyone else. Because I’m not trying to be the best glassblower in the world or make the most money. I just want to make stuff and for it be a reflection of me.”

By Rowan Twine

Main image courtesy of Hannah Baxendale

 

Hannah Baxendale