Court Lay Assistant Mark Holford has just been made the first-ever Patron of the Contemporary Glass Society.
On the announcement, Mark sent the following message to CGS members (and a similar message to the members of the Guild of Glass Engravers):
“I am very honoured to be appointed your first Patron. Thank you.
I do not intend to be purely a figurehead, but rather to help the UK glass world to grow. As you may know, I am also honoured to be the Patron of the Guild of Glass Engravers as well as a member of the Membership Council of Glass Futures, a trustee of the charity of the Glass Sellers livery company and the lender of a third of my collection to the World of Glass in St Helens.
These positions give me a unique overview of what is going on in glass in the UK. Because of this I hope that I will be able to bring together various aspects of glass art and industry to focus on three things:
- Making contemporary glass more popular;
- Reversing the decline in glass education;
- Decarbonising art glass making.
In October, we took our first step of working together, when the CGS, GGE and the Glass Sellers charity met together for the first time ever. We have agreed that we should repeat this, but with a wider group drawn from glass societies, museums, educational institutions and industry. I hope to be able to arrange another meeting with this wider set of participants in the first quarter of next year. I strongly believe that working together is the only way that we stand a chance of achieving these objectives.
Another example of working together is that CGS will organise from next year a continuous exhibition of glass in the entry atrium of the Glass Futures’ new factory in St Helens.
Finally, if any of you want to contact me for any reason, please feel free to do so. Also you are very welcome to visit my collection which is in the heart of London three minutes’ walk from Victoria station.”
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