School of fish far from chalkface
Exploring rock pools on Whitby beach provided the inspiration for a special creative collaboration for glass-maker Joanne Kenny. Chris Burn speaks to her about the project. Pictures by James Hardisty.
WHEN Jo Kenny decided to give up her teaching job to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time artist, she couldn’t have anticipated that the Covid-19 pandemic would swiftly intervene and upend her plans. But with the studio she used in Oxford where she was living closed due to lockdown, moving back to Yorkshire during a difficult time ended up sparking what the glass-blower has found to be the most exciting and fulfilling project of her career – inspired by delving into Whitby’s rock pools.
It has resulted in a new creative partnership with Scottish glass-cutter and polisher Gordon Taylor, with the work have won Arts Council funding and now due to be exhibited in York's Pyramid Gallery early next year under the title What Lies Beneath.
Kenny, who studied Glass and Ceramics at Sunderland University in the 1980s and whose work took her to glass studios in London and Holland, qualified as a teacher in 1991 and since that point had split her time between education and making.
After saving funds to go full-time as an artist, her plans were initially upended by the pandemic.
“I was building up to make my own little business alongside doing my glass teaching in Oxford,” she says. “I had put in my notice at the school I was working at but it ended up being really bad timing because at that point we went into Covid lockdown.
“I ended up losing 80 per cent of my income for the year and got no financial support from the Government. I had to make some decisions pretty fast.
“Myself and my husband had bought a house in Whitby for our retirement and it became pretty obvious that I had to get in sooner rather than later and do work on the house to save money on builders and keep my brain active.”
As well as taking a series of jobs to bring in money, Kenny’s time in Whitby gave her the perspective that inspired the new project.
“Whitby was just amazing, it was like