Anne Martin

I am a visual artist. The craft is next to the content expression is close to my heart.

Q&A

What craft do you work with?

I am a visual artist. The craft is next to the content expression is close to my heart. I work in different media. These include sculptural and installation works in wood and glass, as well as photography and film. I like what inspires me and my work, there is no favourite discipline for me.

What inspires you to work with this craft?

For a few years now, I prefer to work with wood and glass. For designs of art in building projects I work sculpturally with paper, with the help of light and photography I create images that can be transferred to flat glass, for example. What inspires me is the process itself, the experience and recognition of materials and their symbioses. It is like a contagion from one project to the next. What it means, the content of my work, is also inspired by the process. To create physically is important because it gives our bodies and minds a sense of meaning that is located in the nature of things, with boundaries that can provide something like comfort.

How do you start your creative process?

Basically, I haven’t started a process for a long time. Since I experience my projects as flowing in themselves. From a purely material point of view, I would say I start by tidying up, and then I start somewhere, because I often strive for innovative processes, I usually don’t know exactly what work is needed, I usually only realise this in the process, return to it or start again from there. I find it particularly difficult to finish. The most pleasant experience is when I have found the process to create things and can follow it intuitively.

Your workspace?

My workplace is divided into several areas. I have a room for woodworking, one for very clean work, for paper for example. Then I have an extra place where I can work wet, for finishing glass for example. At the moment I can’t do without my router for woodworking, but for glassworking I can’t do without a water-cooled angle grinder. I can’t do without the possibility of implementing my designs in hot glass techniques in the glassworks. But for that I have to leave my workplace. I can’t imagine not continuing to work together with Glasmalerei Peters, not designing paper models any more. And many other things.

Are there new techniques you would like to try?

I am answering here only in relation to glass. I would like to try traditional glass etching. I would also like to be able to work glass on the lamp. Above all, I would like to get better at the processes I already know, or have a basic knowledge of.

Sharing your craft and experience.

Patience pays off is perhaps the advice that can be applied globally to all processes. I would like to have a deeper discussion with a glass chemist. Crafts that specialise in wood and glass are always exciting. Professionally, I would like my artistic work to be recognised by the public and by sponsors. It is difficult for me to answer these questions concretely, perhaps because I am first a visual artist and then a craftsman who follows a clear process.