Christopher Blade Design: Recently Added Galleries and Collections

China 2007

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 08:01:00 GMT

China 2008

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 02:29:00 GMT

Contemporary Furniture

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Made to commission only

Recent travels through Kazakhstan

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:44:00 GMT

How is it possible to comprehensively illustrate the 9th largest country in the world? Everything is mind boggling. Including the world's largest man made environmental disaster - the loss of the Aral sea. Consigned to a not so slow extinction, along with the towns, villages & people who used to make a living from it, all in the race to produce cotton

Recent travels through Mongolia

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:03:00 GMT

Working as a photographer for the British adventure travel company Dragoman (www.dragoman.com) has enabled me to explore countries I have only dreamed of visiting. The most recent being Outer Mongolia. A vast, desolate & beautiful country boasting some of the most inhospitable landscape & hospitable people one could hope to meet. Traveling in a large truck, converted to carry passengers, was the ideal mode of transport enabling us to go pretty much anywhere. But even that did not prevent us getting stuck occasionally! Mongolia as one of the largest countries in the world amazingly only has a few hundred km of tarmac roads - it is vast. A country without roads, fences or limits, home to some of the last truly nomadic people on the earth.

Places visited include: Outer Mongolia; Inner Mongolia; Khovsgol Nuur National Park; The Ice Canyon; Flaming Cliffs; Gers; White Lake; Gobi Desert; Tsetserleg; Shankh Monastery; Erdene Zuu Monastry; Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur National Park; Tsagaannuur Lake & The Great White Lake.

Recent travels through Russia

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:51:00 GMT

4 weeks driving through Russia enabled visits to a number of fascinating places including Samara with it's impressive memorials & Stalin’s Bunker; Kazan with it's UNESCO site, churches & Mosque; beautiful Suzdal, the picturesque epitome of an old religious Russian town with 16 churches; Vladimir with it's gorgeous Cathedral; Moscow in all it's glory with a myriad of major & minor tourist attractions including Red Square, St Basil’s Cathedral, Kremlin, Lenin's tomb, etc; Novgorod & finally St Petersburg. A beautiful city founded by Peter the Great & boasting sights such as the Hermitage Art Gallery, which has a collection so large that reputedly if you looked at a work for 1 second 24/7/365 it would take 3 years to see! The Tsar's Summer Palace with its gravity fed fountains is a rare treat.

Contact christopherjblade@gmail if you are interested in photographs from any of these cities. A larger selection is available for commercial use.

Siberia

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:39:00 GMT

Israel

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 19:19:00 GMT

Contemporary Glass

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Please contact Chris if you would like information regarding availability, costs or commissioning of work christopherjblade@gmail.com

All work is designed by Chris Blade; hand made; hand blown; cut and signed unless otherwise stated.
Graal work is always the product of a close working relationship with a skilled team - it cannot be made by one person. Teams of up to 5 people were involved in the blown graal works illustrated here.

Some of the newest works have been made in collaboration with Israel glass artist Katya Filmus (www.katyafilmus.com). These are all cast in a kiln & involve very different skill sets than the blown work. Pieces may take a month or more to make. Work made with Katya is cleraly identified in the text associated with each image.

Recent travels through Africa

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:28:00 GMT

Once again I was invited by the British adventure travel company Dragoman Adventures to record the adventures & experiences of a group of passengers traveling in an Overland Truck from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe & through Botswana & the Okavango Delta, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho to Cape Town in South Africa via the so called Garden Route.

illustrated here are a few images taken along the 5 week route.

It is possible to travel round the world in trucks like this if you like adventure, camping & other people! Check out the website at www.dragoman.com

Contact Chris: christopherjblade@gmail.com

Kyrgyzstan

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:12:00 GMT

Georgia

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:45:00 GMT

Tibet

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 09:00:00 GMT

China

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 08:39:00 GMT

Turkey

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:38:00 GMT

Nepal

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:07:00 GMT

The Glassblowing Process

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:47:00 GMT

Glass blowing is a fascinating process to watch. Although not a particularly talented glass blower myself, I understand the processes extremely well. Much of my work explores a technique called 'graal' which is incredibly difficult, time-consuming & expensive because it requires teams of up to 4 people to make & ha to be blown twice!

My graal works are manufactured in England, Australia, Turkey & Israel where I can hand-pick teams of incredibly skilled glass blowers.

Australia:
www.timshaw.com
www.jamfactory.org

Turkey:
www.glassfurnace.org

The graal process involves each work being blown twice! After the first time, it is cooled & then I then cut in the final design through multi-coloured layers of glass using a diamond lathe, diamond drills, diamond saw & sandblaster to create a unique design ready for the piece to be reheated & blown to its final size & shape.

Azerbaijan

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 14:51:00 GMT

Turkmenistan

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:56:00 GMT

What am amazing country Turkmenistan is. The capital city Ashgabat is acontemporary oasis filled with incredible modern buildings & monumental sculptural icons.

Uzbekistan

christopherjblade@gmail.com (Christopher Blade Design) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:58:00 GMT