Glassware is like Onions
The Thaw glassware collection in acidic green is manufactured from recycled glass (image: Fabian Frinzel).
What’s chunky, heavy, and acidic green all over? You may be thinking of a certain misanthropic ogre who lives alone in a swamp and plays the title role in the Dreamworks classic Shrek (2001). And you’d be right, but this description also fits Thaw, a collection of glassware by London-based jewellery and homewares brand Completedworks.
Unlikely companions though Shrek and luxury tableware may be, their green bodies are not the only things they have in common. Like Shrek, who subverts audiences’ expectations of ogres as being ugly and mean, Thaw seeks to overturn preconceptions. Anna Jewsbury, founder and artistic director of Completedworks, describes her process as taking a traditional medium such as luxury glassware and “subverting it to a place of newness, making it very slightly strange or a little bit unexpected.”
The sturdy glass forms in the Thaw collection “imitate a much softer or more supple material”, says Jewsbury. Indeed, the bulky jug seems to relax into the slump of gravity, while the accompanying goblets’ stems ooze downwards and spread sloppily into their swampy bases. Their odd shapes are visceral and tempting, as if a magic spell has been cast over them. “They look almost alive,” Jewsbury remarks, “which I really love.”
Thaw’s use of highlighter-green glass adds to the enticing sense of oddness. Unmissable and zesty, this shade is created through the use of recycled glass from broken windows and bottles. These waste streams combine to create a “really lovely aqua” glass in the recycling process, says Jewsbury, to which pigments are added. It all amounts to waste transformed into a striking, limey, slightly unusual treasure.
The intended effect of this visual strangeness? “I think it creates this relationship with the person who is observing or interpreting the qualities of the material,” says Jewsbury. “It makes them look twice at the piece.” There is more here than meets the eye. This lesson in finding value in unexpected places was also imparted by Shrek, when, about halfway through his reluctant (though some might say fortuitous) adventure with his sidekick Donkey to save a princess called Fiona from her dragon-guarded prison, he surmises that “ogres are like onions”. Beneath their stand-offish demeanour and bulky form, should you take the time to look within, come surprising layers of emotional vulnerability, varied skillsets and a wry sense of humour. Glass is not just fancy crystalware; ogres are more than just monsters.
Towards the end of Shrek, Donkey catches a glimpse of Fiona’s hometown, Far Far Away, as the three travel towards it to reunite the princess with her family. Upon seeing the giant castle in the distance and the wide palm tree-lined boulevards, Donkey exclaims: “It’s gonna be champagne wishes and caviar dreams from now on.” Writing in Paste, TV and film journalist Adesola Thomas posits that “[the] line is an effective signifier of the change in class environment that our dynamic trio experiences”. It is a moment when the viewer is asked to question who and what is welcome in a luxurious royal kingdom, and why. Likewise, Jewsbury invites us to rethink what we might find on high-end dinner tables by embracing the weird and boldly wonderful. Perfection, Thaw shows, is no longer the only marker of luxury goods. Instead, objects that make us think about them more deeply can be desirable too. Let’s cheers our chunky, acidic-green goblets to that.
Words Lara Chapman
Photograph Fabian Frinzel
This article was originally published in Disegno #36. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.