Hours in Wind: casting for Kate Newby

Hours in Wind, a sculpture installation of glass and rope by Kate Newby

I visited Sydney for a weekend in mid-June for a 2-day conference, yet I desperately wanted to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia to see an installation I had cast some glass for last year, so we stayed another night. The glass component for Hours in Wind was fabricated by the Canberra Glassworks in July 2024. Most of the pieces were hotworked by Netty Blair and Tom Rowney, but there are a few cast glass pieces.

I love the final installations, and I'm so glad to have seen them on site. There is a short video here, with some installation and making shots. Kate Newby video You can see Hours in Wind at the MCA until 21 July 2025. More photos of my visit are at the end of the post.

Glass art installation

Most of the cast glass fabrication was in process while the artist was overseas on an art residency. Kate packed up the fired clay models she had made to be freighted over 14000km to the Canberra Glassworks.

On the left is one of the objects we unpacked, and on the right is a finished cast glass component installed at the MCA.

Comparison of a fired clay positive to the cast glass

What follows is a photo journal of the cast glass process - while I was doing my bit, glass was being hot formed in the hotshop. After casting and hot forming, the pieces would have been cold worked - all the punties and sprues ground down and polished and then packed. At least 10 glassmakers would have worked on creating these objects before they travelled up to Sydney to be installed by Kate and the MCA install team (which is another job entirely!)

TL: On the table are fired clay forms from the artist and tests of texture and colour from the hotshop.

TR: Fired clay object 14, simplest shape - start with this one!

BL: Object 14 set up inside a PVC pipe, ready for silicon

BR: Dylan McCracken (my assistant that day) scraping the last of the silicon into the pipe.

TL: We have poured waxes for object 14 and a few other shapes.

TR: Setting up a 2-part silicon mould in a clay bed, marbles for registration keys.

BL: The most complicated shape!

BR: The other side of the 2 part mould.

TL: Lots going on. Tools and setting silicon

TR: A wax form with sprue and feeder: sprues allow trapped air to escape and the feeder is where the glass pours into the form

BL: Dylan is prepping the plaster and silica mix for coating the waxes.

BR: A complete investment cast. Layers of plaster and silica with a final layer of plaster, silica and grog.

TL: Weighing the crystal and loading into pots.

TR: Kiln set up. Hollow moulds with glass and pots on top.

BL: My blackboard tally.

BR: While I've been making moulds, the hotshop has been busy.

WTL: After 10 days in the kiln, the cooled glass forms are de-moulded

TR: Feeders and sprues are removed with the diamond saw or other blades.

BL: Engraving away a sprue point

BR: Cleaned and ready for the saw.

I spent a fair bit of the day at the Museum of Contemporary Art, so I had the time to see it in the morning and afternoon light.