Ideas and Translations in Glass - CGS at Morley College

We are delighted to announce that Joseph Harrington, Jo Guile and Dr Helen Slater Stokes will be speaking at the event. We will also be welcoming 3 previous students from Morley College to share their practises on the day, April Hillingross, Natasha Redina and Caroline Reid. Senior Glass Lecturer at Morley, Maria Zulueta, has also arranged a tour of the facilities at the college, and an exhibition of the students work too!

Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the day, and Morley College is right next to the market, which is the perfect place for a spot of lunch!

The theme of the day is looking at how ideas are translated into glass and the wide range of concepts, and use of techniques and processes artists use to bring these to life. Each of the artists speaking have different ways of making this transition from ideas to final pieces, and hopefully their talks will give a small incite into this and maybe inspire ways for you to step out of your comfort zone and experiment further with glass yourself.

Schedule for the day:

10.00am - Morley College Opens - Registration and Tea & Coffee

10.30am - Welcome

10.40am - Speaker – Helen Slater Stokes

11.35am - Speaker - Joseph Harrington

12.30pm - Lunch

1.30pm - Speaker - Jo Guile

2.25pm - Tea & Coffee – plus Workshop Tours

3.15pm - Speaker - April Hillingross

3.30pm - Speaker - Natasha Redina

3.45pm - Speaker - Caroline Reid

4.00pm - Exciting up and coming CGS events and Symposium Close

Joseph Harrington

Joseph Harrington is a sculptor working in cast glass. He graduated with an MA in Ceramics and Glass from the Royal College of Art in 2006. He won ‘Best in Show’ at the 2017 British Glass Biennale and a gold medal at the Bavarian State Prize 2018. He has had he work acquired by several museum collections including: V&A Museum, London, Chrysler Museum, Bullseye Gallery collection.

"I will talk through my processes, inspirations, and philosophies on what I create and why this is important to me. I’ll discuss how your early intuitions can carry through your creative life, seeing reoccurring themes as grounding rather than repetition.

There will be a focus on a resent large-scale commission, the challenges this brings and the importance of community to be able to conceive bigger ideas. As well as how teaching forms an integral element to what I do and how an openness to share your knowledge creates community and creativity."

Image: Joseph Harrington-St Helens ii

Jo Guile

Jo Guile is an artist working across installation, sculpture, and photography. A graduate of the Royal College of Art’s MA Ceramics & Glass, she works with glass techniques including blown, cast, and flame-worked glass to break down and reform light in both site-specific and stand-alone works.

"My talk will explore my interest in how light, colour, and screens—both physical and natural—shape perception and mediate our relationship to the world. I will illustrate this by presenting some of my work and, in doing so, reveal how overlooked or unseen perspectives evoke moments that are lost, imagined, or elsewhere. I was recently shortlisted for the John Ruskin Prize and have shown my work internationally, including at the Stanislav Libenský Award in Prague and Venice Glass Week (HUB, 2025)."

Image: Jo Guile-Negative Ground

Dr Helen Slater Stokes

Helen is a Glass Artist and Lecturer; Helen graduated from The Royal College of Art, with a master’s degree in 3D Design: Glass & Ceramics, in 1996 and since then has been lecturing and making glass sculpture from her workshop in the Cotswolds.

She completed a part-time PhD by practice, in 2021, at The Royal College of Art, London.

"My talk will present my current optical research into translating nature and environmental ideas into abstract, contemporary visualisations through glass.

Drawing on both historical and modern technologies, I will explore how imagery derived from natural forms can be embedded within glass to produce illusions of depth, movement, and spatial ambiguity that extend beyond the material’s physical boundaries. I will consider how these visual effects are shaped by the mechanisms of human perception, and how an understanding of how we see informs my practice. By integrating insights from visual perception science, observational drawing, and lenticular technologies, I examine how glass can operate as an immersive, interactive medium that challenges and engages the viewer’s spatial perception."

Image: Helen Slater Stokes-Breaking Ground-Sequence images-Photo-Sylvain Deleu

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