I had a great days at Harrods on Saturday in the run up to Valentine's day. It is a very long day too, I get up at 4.15am and catch the 6.30 train to London, after a full day (up to 7.30 pm) of engraving I head back home, 3 hours door to door trip. But it is still a surreal and exciting experience, even though I have done this several times now....and will be there again NEXT SATURDAY 14th FEB.
As a professional engraver with commissions from all over the world involving very complicated artwork on all shapes of crystal and a combination of hand engraving and sandblasting, sometimes also acid and stipple, which calls on all the experience of 25 years in the business full time that I can muster.....engraving perfume bottles in Harrods is still one of the most challenging jobs I have done.
One is presented with every shape and size perfume bottle there is, some of the "glass" is not even glass, often a colour is added in the way of a thin rubber coating, which is not good when approached with a drill. But I have been learning by experimenting on samples if they are looking troublesome, generally I manage to make a plan, mostly the glass is gorgeous to work on. Some surprisingly effective, one we thought was not engravable turned out to be easily engravable with a subtle and interesting effect. The customers are delighted at the idea of being able to offer something very different, that extra little surprise when openned.
The layout and engraving has to be decided and executed with great haste, balance of layout and neatness vital, often with many interruptions, but that does not worry me too much as I love the interraction with so many different people.
They all have things to do, trains to catch and parking times to stick to and each job must be perfect in my eyes. On seeing my serious examples of engraving I have on display along with a slideshow of my work, one customer commented how this was rather a "come down" .....it is an interesting comment, but as I have explained, no easy feat.
This week I will be designing and engraving a Dartington Admirals decanter with a lovely English woodland scene all around the body, a delightful subject.
Of course there is the Cambridge Glass Fair fast approaching ...22nd February...where is the time going?? I will be featuring African animals and demonstrating engraving.
http://www.cambridgeglassfair.co.uk/
At this point I would just like to pause for a moment to think about all those who have died, been badly injured and have lost everything in the fires of Australia.
