How might you ask? Well let me tell you a story…...

I make ceramics, I’m not a well-known artist, I don’t sell anything, I don’t make money from it and my career was in computing as an I.T. Manager.

Sadly, my ceramics journey started with someone’s death. It wasn’t just anyone’s death but my mother’s my “Mam” as we call them in the North.

In 2001 my Mam suddenly passed away. The shock and loss of a parent is always hard to cope with and I wasn’t doing it very well at all and I was at a loss at how to stop feeling so sad all of the time.

My life at that time was basically go to work and solvecomputer problems, then come home and just think about missing my Mam. There seemed to be no way out of the sadness I felt. This couldn’t go on and after a few weeks of this misery I decided something had to be done and I needed to break the cycle.

I thought perhaps an evening class would give me something to occupy my mind. I saw a Ceramics class advertised. Not only had I never done pottery before, but even better the course was free. I went along with some trepidation, thinking “what have I signed up for?” After all, I considered myself to be a “techie” rather than an “artist”.

In the class I was seated with 4 fantastic ladies who were around the same age as my Mam and they laughed and jokedthe whole time. They reminded me so much of my Mam, but in a much happier time.

They brought laughter back into my life and the sudden realisation that I enjoyed ceramics helped me to cope with grieving for her, by remembering the good times rather than her death. Suddenly life seemed a whole lot better.

More importantly, every time I started making a ceramic piece it always reminded me of my Mam. 21 years later it still doesand I have a huge smile thinking of her.

After a while I signed up for even more evening courses but this time at the National Glass Centre. Wow I was so overawed at their facilities and couldn’t believe I was making things there, me a mere hobby potter.

How proud I was that I was not only going to a centre of excellence but even more than that my Dad had been a “Plater” at the very shipyard which was situated on the site of the National Glass Centre. Even he was proud of me, a tough no-nonsense northern shipyard worker was impressed with his son’s creations,

what a surprise in my life.

I even managed to appear in the University’s learning booklet.

The professionalism of the staff teaching me, the chance to meet other students at the Glass Centre and being able to see what I could achieve eventually led me to purchase my own kiln. Contacts I made on the courses also led to the purchase of my first pottery wheel.

Every time I either make a ceramic piece or look at the many pieces either in my house or the homes of people who have my art, I think of my Mam. Not with sadness but with a hugesmile and I say thank you to her.

So, this story isn’t really about me it’s about my Mam, who sadly never got to see any of my ceramics or my journey from an evening class in a little school through to the country’samazing National Glass Centre.

The National Glass Centre was key to changing large parts of my life, all linked with someone sadly passing away and enabling others to smile when they receive a piece of my amateurish pottery, who would have thought it!!

My career was in computing, did I like it, well yes but my soul is in ceramics, do I like it, just ask my Mam she knows.

This is why all of my ceramics are dedicated to her.

#SaveTheNGC #SaveTheNGCA

Do you have a story about the National Glass Centre?

Has it changed or improved your life as well?

Write to us! We would love to share it here.

Gary Nicholson, Artist

After the stinging news that the National Glass Centre (NGC) is under threat of closure, many people have come forward to share their memories and concerns for the future of glass in the City of Sunderland. Here are my thoughts.

In 2012, I arrived at the NGC to do a Foundation Degree in Art and Design. I made friends and lots of good memories. I went on to do a B.A. (Hons) Illustration and Design, then an M.A. Design (Illustration) on the University of Sunderland’s City Campus. In fact, I returned to the NGC to work with the technicians on some glass sculptures for my final exhibition. In January 2018, I founded Regeneration NE Community Interest Company with my long-term friend, who himself studied Ceramics at the NGC.

In 2019, The Art Studio, a mental health charity in Hendon, closed down due to lack of funding. Having volunteered and worked as a tutor there, regular service-users, who were living with serious mental illness looked to me and Regeneration NE for help. It was the NGC where we would meet up, have a coffee and perhaps do some sketches overlooking the river.

Above: The glass sculpture, Regeneration 2017, created by Gary Nicholson at the NGC.

Among the meeting rooms in the NGC, I attended Artworks-U Networking and Support meetings which gathered local artists to discuss projects, problems, new ideas and potential collaborations. It was a safe place for new graduates like me to watch and learn from more experienced creatives who travelled from across the region to be there. Kids and families often head over to the building to see the exhibitions and amazing glass-blowing demonstrations as an educational and cheap day out. Local artists can also hire the facilities to create and run their businesses. You can even buy affordable and unique glass pieces created by the artists on site.

The NGC is a landmark and a place of education, history, heritage, community and culture. It links modern Creative Industries with the City’s proud industrial past. It has impacted the local economy by attracting students who want to study Glass and Ceramics. In the past 10 years, other universities have dropped Art, Glass and Ceramics courses from their prospectus, (e.g. Falmouth, Kent, Roehampton, Wolverhampton), which makes the dedicated centre for the tuition of Glass and Ceramics all-the-more precious at a national level.

It’s true, sentimentality won’t pay the NGC bills. However, the same Sunderland people had the self-belief, business and creative expertise to be shortlisted for City of Culture 2021. Regeneration NE urges them to now work on saving the NGC. It will be a logistical and safety nightmare to squeeze everything into shared spaces in the City Centre. It would be just plain wrong to let it slip away without a fight.

Gary Nicholson (Artist).

Director and Co-Founder of Regeneration NE.

email: regenerationnecic@gmail.com

Regeneration NE uses art as therapy to support better mental health and wellbeing in the community.

Tag Archives: Joblings glass

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