Light fantastic
Employing glassblowing techniques little changed for centuries, Rothschild & Bickers creates distinctive lighting, inspired by Arts and Crafts to vintage designs
Keeping alive the traditional skills of glassblowing with a true Arts and Crafts ethos, Rothschild & Bickers creates beautifully distinctive lighting
Ifell in love with glassblowing the first time that I tried it. I found it a captivating challenge,’ says Mark Bickers, co-founder of lighting studio Rothschild & Bickers, which handmakes glass lights to order. ‘It takes seven years to become a master blower but the craft requires a continuous refinement of your skill, and no piece is guaranteed to work out, however experienced you are. A glassblower has to be comfortable on the knife edge of risk and reward. And to be able to cope with the heat!’
The hot, dry air hits as soon as you walk in the door of the Hertford studio; a sweltering microclimate whatever the weather outside. Furnaces blaze, melting glass to a temperature of 1100˚C. Balls of molten material are carried across the room on metal rods, ready to be transformed into exquisite lampshades. Even the ‘cold’ studio is a hotbed of activity, as it is here that the newly made lights are ground and polished by diamondencrusted blades until smooth and shining.
Glassblowers tend to work in pairs, which is how Mark and studio co-founder Victoria Rothschild came to know each other and, eventually, start their business. ‘We met when we were both studying at the Royal College of Art and rented a studio together when we graduated, working on separate projects but assisting each other when needed,’ Victoria explains. When she was asked by fashion brand Ted Baker to create some bespoke lighting for its stores, it made sense to get Mark involved. And so when Ted Baker asked them to do a few more jobs, the pair decided to make their creative partnership a permanent one, founding Rothschild & Bickers in 2007. ‘We’re not a couple – people always ask if we’re married – but we’re really good friends,’ says Victoria. ‘People joke we’re the same person because we have identical tastes; we even like the same foods. It’s the perfect foundation for our business. When we’re developing a new design, we’ll both look at it and say at the same time, “That’s the one”.’
Their first lights were inspired by the trend for vintage interiors at the time and these are still some of their most popular designs – an oriental lantern created from a bubble of fluted glass; an Art Deco shade reinterpreted in a ripple of fringed glass. ‘We try to ride the line between contemporary and traditional,’ says Mark.
‘But ultimately, it’s the material that decides how a finished design will look. I don’t understand how anyone can draw a light on a computer and ship it off to be made in a factory, because it loses the relationship between the material and the product. The shape evolves as you blow it, so our designs use the way glass wants to move – stretching, twisting or taking on texture – to create our collection.’
Glassblowers have used furnaces and simple tools to create their wares since as far back as 50BC. Rothschild & Bickers is no different; it’s simply that the kilns are powered by electricity rather than a fire and bellows. On a Friday, the furnace is opened and glass ‘batch’ from Sweden is shovelled
‘The shape evolves as you blow it, so our designs use the way glass wants to move – stretching, twisting...’
in slowly over the course of a few hours. ‘The Scandinavians produce the clearest glass,’ Mark explains. The glass chips melt down over the weekend, ready for work to begin on Monday.
The process of making a light starts with the colour. Rods of intensely pigmented glass are put in a smaller kiln to soften. A piece of colour is picked up on the end of a long, hollow rod and the maker will blow through one end, creating a bubble in the coloured glass at the other. This is then dipped into the main furnace which forms the ‘gather’ of clear glass over the top - similar to scooping honey from a jar. Another blow down the rod expands the glass, distributing the colour and beginning to form the shape. This is then manipulated with tools and a simple hand-held pad of paper spritzed with water. ‘The glass will go back and forth to the furnace to be softened and shaped, until ready to be taken off the rod,’ Mark explains. ‘Then it’s left in a kiln overnight to cool, ready to be polished and finished in the cold studio.’
It is this painstaking process that sets mouthblown glass apart from its mass-produced equivalents. ‘Our glass is heavier and has a more molten quality than factory glass, which is thin and has sharp edges. Some “blown” glass is actually just blown into a mould, so the maker isn’t learning the skills to create shapes,’ says Victoria. ‘We train apprentices in traditional techniques because we want to keep these skills alive, and sustain glassblowing in our own small way.’
The last element is to construct the light itself, fitting the electrical components and adding the decorative details selected by the customer. ‘There are 800,000 customisable combinations of our lights, plus we make bespoke designs,’ says Mark. ‘Our lights are really popular for stairwells and kitchens, and it’s lovely when our clients send in pictures of them in their own homes. Craft can be a rarefied world so it’s great to create products that people use every day.’
For more details visit rothschildbickers.com
‘We train apprentices in traditional techniques because we want to keep these skills alive’