Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The Crystal Chain GangJ i m D e n n i s o n & L e a n n e W i l l i a m s
F a n c y F o o l s F l i g h t
The Crystal Chain GangJ i m D e n n i s o n & L e a n n e W i l l i a m s
F a n c y F o o l s F l i g h t
C o n t e n t First published in February, 2012 to document the exhibition The Crystal Chain Gang: Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams – Fancy Fools Flight at the Sarjeant Gallery from 10 December, 2011 – 26 February 2012.
Touring in 2012 – 2013 to Objectspace, Auckland; The Suter Art Gallery, Nelson; Pataka Museum of Arts and Cultures, Porirua and Aratoi – Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Masterton.
© Text copyright Sarjeant Gallery, Wanganui and Bronwyn Lloyd, 2012
This publication is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without prior permission of the publishers.
ISBN 978-0-9864569-3-0
Publication manager: Greg Donson Guest writer: Bronwyn Lloyd Editing: Greg Donson, Sarah McClintockPhotography: Richard Wotton, Jane Ussher and Leanne WilliamsDesign: Inc Creative Ltd. WanganuiPrint: Meteor Design and Print, Wanganui
This exhibition and accompanying publication wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of
Queen’s Park • Wanganui • New ZealandP.O. Box 998 • Phone 06 349 0506 • Fax 06 349 0507
3. f a n c y f o o l s f l i g h t g r e g d o n s o n
F o r e w o r d
The Sarjeant Gallery is proud to be able to produce and curate Fancy Fools Flight, the first large-scale exhibition, at
a public art gallery, of the work of Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams, otherwise known as The Crystal Chain Gang.
The Crystal Chain Gang’s enormous body of work is studied, clearly informed by years of honed technique, and
crosses boundaries between art, design and craft. Their chosen medium is glass but this is not the sole focus of their
creation. The Crystal Chain Gang’s work, in my view, tends more towards the concept, than it is about adherence to
the accepted norms and traditions of glassmaking – and this is a part of what makes this set of works so unique. They
have reworked and reconceptualised the objects and debris of our social history and recreated them in rich textured
glass creations.
The Sarjeant is thrilled that we are able to tour this unique body of works and are very happy that it will be seen far
and wide at: Objectspace, Auckland; The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson; Pataka Museum of Arts and
Cultures, Porirua and Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Masterton.
It has been a pleasure developing this exhibition with Jim and Leanne and we know that all future audiences will
experience curiosity, delight and wonder on their journey through the Fancy Fools Flight.
Greg Anderson
Senior Curator
Sarjeant Gallery, Te Whare O Rehua, Whanganui
1 2
3 4
F a n c y F o o l s F l i g h tn e w a n d o l d f l i g h t p a t h s
The Wor ld o f In ter iors
A stack of ‘The World of Interiors’ magazines, publications on New Zealand history, glass making, design, English
costume of the Middle and Elizabethan ages and cookbooks were some of the many things I found scattered around
the large studio and workshop of Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams, during a visit in October, 2011. These written and
illustrated accounts are just a few of the sources from which the pair draw inspiration for their work. Amongst the many
tables in the studio used for various stages of glass production there is also a rich and varied collection of found objects,
sourced over many years from second-hand shops and garage sales. These objects range from plaster busts of King
Edward VIII and Queen Elizabeth II, china ornaments including birds and dogs, cut glass decanters and lightshades to
name but a few. These objects have not only heavily influenced the body of bottle works that encompass ‘Fancy Fools
Flight’ but over the last few years they have been reworked and reconsidered in many guises. Not only do the objects
provide a valuable archive of inspiration, in turn they are essential components for the process of translation that takes
place in the creation of Jim Dennison and Leanne Wiliams’ AKA the Crystal Chain Gang’s work.
The objects are part of the long process of lost-wax casting that takes place to create cast glass works. From the
‘original’ object, latex rubber moulds are made and these are in turn filled with wax, which once set has details hand-worked
with a variety of tools, mostly a range of trusty kitchen knives. Although a few steps away from the finished cast glass
product, these are in themselves beautifully hand-crafted objects that are encased in a block of plaster and silica. Once set
the wax is melted out and a negative space is formed into which glass billets are stacked, then the object is placed in the
kiln where over the period of a day the temperature is increased to 800°C. During this time the glass oozes into the negative
space. After several days when the glass is cooled, the object is removed from its mould and ground into its finished form.
The method of lost-wax casting is a lengthy one and one that involves a conversation between negative and positive
spaces: to make such solid objects, hollow spaces first need to be made. The object comes in and out of focus and is
subject to temperature, pressure and strain that has no regard for the makers’ creative impulses. Even after undertaking
this labour-intensive journey, there’s no guarantee that chance won’t come into play and a nearly completed piece can
silently crack. Unlike a more forgiving medium such as painting, there’s no going back.
Fancy Fools Flight is the fruit of six months of hard labour. It’s no wonder that each piece is a long conversation
between forms, as each of the works is made up of a solid base which functions as plinth, on top of which is an
elaborate stopper and, in some cases, the stopper itself is stoppered. These stoppers are comprised of both human and
animal heads as well as a few in between the two. Each of the bottles is anchored by a block of solid colour, immersed
in beautiful clear glass, and those colours recall both alcoholic spirits and colours evocative of other drinks - Coca-Cola,
orange juice. As well as being indicative of drinkable liquids, they sensually evoke a kind of colour therapy. On seeing
one orangey bottle complete, the pair’s son declared to his Mum that it made him think of peaches.
5 6
Greg Donson
Dennison and Williams’ interest in discarded objects and knick knacks from everyday domestic life – other
people’s unwanted things extends beyond the objects actual form. Yes they are essential components that add to
the assemblage mix but it is also the unspoken and banal domestic histories that those objects have been part of that
interest them. British writer Tanya Harrod comments “Homes in Britain contain objects valued by their owners. Some of
these objects will have been purchased. Some may be gifts. Some may be defined as luxuries, others as necessities,
but it is the interplay between these goods which is important and through which individuals display discrimination,
responsibility and agency in their role as consumer-collectors. A proportion of this stuff will have been diverted from an
original use and re-presented, in effect taking the form of a souvenir...” 1.
The idea of value and object hierarchy in the domestic setting is one that interests Dennison and Williams. Objects
that were once highly prized, such as a bust of Queen Elizabeth II, or a cut glass decanter displayed on a mantelpiece
or sideboard can find themselves, in a generation, discarded and washed up next to some other unwanted knick-knack
in a junk shop. The pair’s interest is not only in the object but how it ties in with our own cultural histories, the mini
histories that we each grew up with. For Dennison and Williams, glass ‘genie’ bottles that were popular in the 1970s as
ornaments or for housing bath salts are a touchstone to their own childhoods and these re-emerge in Fancy Fools Flight.
By assembling these objects with others and personifying them via a stopper, the pair provide jigsaw-like components
that trigger trips to our own interior worlds, a kind of visit to a childhood museum of familiar domestic objects. But what
the pair do with that memory museum is to take the objects, and reinterpret them from tired and overlooked to a new
posh. They pimp, pump and pomp them up so they become objects of beauty.
Many of the bottles, decanters and vessels that were used in the making of Fancy Fools Flight probably would
have spent much of their existence unused and empty. Natasha Daintry comments “A vessel embodies something and
nothing and is an effortless three dimensional manifestation of form and formlessness … a vessel seems to occupy
space but simultaneously be occupied by space. It defines emptiness as presence. It feels like a push-me, pull-you of
a ‘no-thing’ … ”2.The idea of space is one that Dennison and Williams are acutely aware of, for their objects are not
vessels, but solid and monumental things, if the history of the original objects are degrees of emptiness, they have
literally filled that void with heavy liquid glass. They have taken a liquid substance and through extreme heat have
captured liquid glass in all its bubbly beauty. In each of the objects, bubbles can be seen making the interior a place of
activity and energy. The stoppers, whether human or animal or a bit of both, act as keepers of the contents, genies in
bottles, a good stiff drink or magic potions, whatever you fancy or imagine. It could be said that the pair make each of
the characters ‘foolish’ but it’s not a deactivation that’s taking place, but a reactivation.
Queen Elizabeth’s hair becomes bouffant with a bird roosting like an unwanted fascinator and an eye mask covers
the monarch’s eyes - the bottle feels like Queen Elizabeth is being held captive by British fashion designer Vivienne
Westwood. Other characters include a Rastafarian horse, a couple of pirate- like men and a collection of tui dressed in
Elizabethan collars, whose ruffles have ruffle, and whose teetering heads look as though they have made Dr Seuss-like
coughs to extend their necks. From trinkets Dennison and Williams make trophies and this time they have time-travelled
not just into someone else’s home, but into the interior world of the art gallery.
The neoclassical interiors of the Sarjeant Gallery were an essential component in considering the scale and display
of the works featured in the exhibition. The intimate bays of the gallery evoke Victorian parlours, the best room, where
an overload of ornamentation took place. Here the spaces are empty of domestic comforts and all we are left with is a
collection of impressive objects, catching the light and waiting to be admired.
7 8
Speaking of conversation pieces, the Crystal Palace in which F&C Osler’s magnificent fountain was originally
displayed was only intended as a temporary exhibition space for the duration of the Great Exhibition, after which its
creator Joseph Paxton was charged with finding £500,000 for a new site on which the building could be reconstructed.
This he did and the palace was refashioned into a great garden under glass, complete with many of the exhibits that
were included in the great exhibition, one of which was the Osler fountain. Unfortunately this architectural wonder’s
second life was short-lived when the whole structure burnt down in 1936, “when dawn broke the next the blackened
skeleton of Osler’s crystal fountain was still upright, in a mass of molten glass and twisted iron”.4
Fast forward to the present day. The Crystal Chain Gang is by no means a commercial operation on the scale
of F&C Osler were, however Dennison and Williams are interested in tapping into the curio value and appeal of glass,
So where does the work of the Crystal Chain Gang belong? An easy and obvious pigeonhole for them is ‘glass
artists’ but that’s far too limiting. Although glass is their chosen medium, what informs and influences their practice
and the methods they employ in the creation of their work, places them as kind of nomads between the territories of
craft, design, industry and fine art. They are makers of fine things, but their kinfolk could just as easily be a handful of
other artists working in a number of media as opposed to the glass fraternity. The bottle is a form which Dennison and
Williams have been working with for over a year now. Prior to Fancy Fools Flight, the bottles were a little less fancy, more
domestic, previously home to cleaning fluids and liquids less spirited than those housed in the decanters that inspire the
new body of work. The history of the bottle is one that is synonymous with the history of glass and now bottles (glass
and plastic) are essential components of domestic life.
Although parallels could be made between the Crystal Chain Gang and other practitioners working in glass, their
use of the form sits more comfortably with the work of sculptor Bill Culbert and his illuminated plastic bottle works
and painter Jude Rae, whose still life paintings of bottles and other vessels are charged with energy. Both of these are
artists are exploring the tension between presence and absence and Dennison and Williams explore the form in three
dimensions with a similar degree of electricity. A comparison between two glass makers, a sculptor and a painter is
probably quite a disagreeable trio to many art historians, but if we discard our media-centric methodologies and look at
the subject matter, it’s not such a far fetched comparison. Their work also has parallels with the work of ceramicist Ann
Verdcourt, whose still life arrangements are inspired by the work of painter Giorgio Morandi and are extraordinary studies
of form, scale and composition.
Hunters and Co l lec tors
Dennison and Williams’ interest in the history of glass extends well beyond New Zealand’s recent glass history
and back to the latter half of the nineteenth century and in particular, in Britain. Specific examples are the chandeliers
and candelabra that were produced by British manufacturer F&C Osler of Birmingham. This was the first company to
produce such objects on a large scale and came to public attention in Britain when it exhibited at the Great Exhibition
of the Works of Industry of All Nations, in Joseph Paxton’s legendary feat of architecture, The Crystal Palace, 1851. The
firm displayed an impressive pair of eight feet tall candelabra and a magnificent working glass fountain that was twenty-
seven feet tall, the candelabra that were purchased by Prince Albert for Queen Victoria in 1848. Subsequent world fairs
in the second half of the 1800s in London and Paris continued to be places where cut glass could be showcased to an
enthusiastic public. Interestingly the firm F&C Osler was probably the first to tap into the potential of the Eastern market
for elaborate glass objects. In the early 1840s the firm had established a showroom in Calcutta, India and was creating
elaborate chandeliers, as well as furniture for palaces. 3
The fact that these objects were attainable and viewable by a select few is something that Dennison and Williams have
also considered in the last couple of years as they have been accepting commissions for chandeliers to hang in private
homes and businesses. Like the products that a firm such as F&C Osler were producing in the late 1800s, the Crystal
Chain Gang are also producing objects that are a vital and lively component of interior design. Whereas chandeliers and
furniture produced in glass during the 1800s were largely about conveying the jewel-like qualities of the medium and the
wealth and success of the owners, they were devoid of any narrative or conversation with other objects and histories
inhabiting the real and everyday world. Although this was glass at its extreme and pompous best, this appetite of the
wealthy for these ornaments of excess as conversation pieces is something that intrigues Dennison and Williams.
as it was then and in the present day. In 2006, the pair made their first
chandelier entitled R.I.P, which took on the form of a traditional chandelier
but on closer inspection was made up of birds hanging from fish hooks.
Loot, made in 2011 for this exhibition, is an impressively upscaled
chandelier hung with many birds wings in clear through to lavender
coloured glass and centred with a dramatic throat of cast birds feet. This
work makes a dramatic statement and the pair expertly capitalise on the
seductive qualities of glass to lure people in and make them look closer,
before the reality of the forms register.
Butchery and collecting have been recurring themes in the duo’s
work since the pair began working collaboratively. Their debut work in
2002 entitled Slaughtered was a life-sized sheep carcass, comprising a
metal armature covered with many tiny cast glass clear roses, displayed
from a hook similar to those found in meat works. The pair had the work
photographed at an abattoir, hanging alongside real carcasses.
9 10
This interest in beautifying the brutal is a recurring theme in their work, while also drawing our attention to the
subtle and macabre ways in which we use animals, particularly birds, for companionship - budgerigars in cages
and ornamentation, the use of feathers in dress and obsessive collection. The collecting of indigenous birds by New
Zealand’s most infamous ornithologist - Sir Walter Lowry Buller in the second half of the nineteenth century, is something
that has intrigued both artists, particularly Dennison, whose father was an avid ornithologist and who owns an edition of
Buller’s A History of the Birds of New Zealand, which as a child Dennison spent time poring over. It’s no wonder that the
beautiful illustrations in this publication have stuck in his mind and have heavily influenced his work. Buller’s obsessive
collecting of birds is also referenced in the 2006 work Polly, a giant memento-mori, in the form of a skull encrusted with
the heads of many budgies. Rather than the exotic and native birds that Buller was so fond of, here the pair multiply the
humble non-indigenous budgie in a spectrum of colours.
Although large commissions enable the pair to push the boundaries, they still need to produce works on a smaller
scale to sell, and cast glass birds, primarily budgies have enabled them to do that. For Fancy Fools Flight the work
Auspices features a swarm of birds including tui, bellbirds and fantails that fly through the gallery space; on closer
inspection, a small section of this flock has undergone some serious genetic modification, sprouting human heads.
The Gang
Dennison and Williams have been working under the banner of the Crystal Chain Gang since 2004, and the title refers
to the lead crystal used in the making, while the gang is a nod to the fact that the process of making is very much the work
of a collaborative. Previously Dennison and Williams have worked mainly as a duo, but for this project - thanks to a generous
grant from Creative New Zealand - they were able to employ a full time studio assistant from Sweden to help bring the body
of work to fruition. Another two willing workers, one from America and another from Wellington were also integral, with their
labour exchanged for the learning opportunity and the excellent hospitality of the Dennison and Williams household.
Visiting the studio, it’s clear to see that although Dennison and Williams are the masterminds of each piece, the
conversation and exchange that occurs in the studio during the lengthy process of making is critical in making each
of the objects what it is. Each member of the gang plays a different role, with Williams often taking the role of creative
director, in charge of colour and collaboration of forms and Dennison overseeing the more technical aspects of the
process. But both and their studio workers are all vital cogs in the machine.
The Sarjeant Gallery provided the perfect theatrical backdrop for these works and, rather than each of the
works being displayed on its own plinth, the bottles have been displayed as a large grouping on a multi-legged table,
commissioned from a Wairarapa-based business, Mano Design. As with many of their works, the display mechanism
is an integral part of the complete piece, whether that be a metal armature, framework for a chandelier or in this case a
custom built table. This idea of the glass object being part of a much larger stage set was also explored in a 2009 work
entitled Plunderers, made for an outdoor installation at the Brick Bay Sculpture Park in Auckland. It consisted of a bunch
of forty pirate birds – that had ‘landed’ on an existing structure in the park. As though they are too busy out in the world,
they make an appearance in the exhibition as a series of photographic portraits, ancestors to the current crew. This
engagement with photography is far removed from the labour intensiveness of glass production but indicative of two
artists who are not afraid to traverse new paths.
Although the pair are making work that is incredibly methodical, detailed and skilled, the finished products are filled
with wit, playfulness and a lightness that belies their cast weight. The ghosts of objects past are visible, and although
joins, asymmetry and occasional fissures are normally frowned upon by the glass fraternity, they can be quietly found
here, adding to the life of these works.
Having only joined forces as an artistic partnership in 2002, the pair previously had quite different day jobs.
Dennison was a landscape designer with a degree in ecology and Williams was a primary school teacher. After a bout of
glandular fever, Williams decided that there was more to life, and that she wanted to go to art school to undertake a fine
arts degree. Dennison wasn’t so convinced but after a trip to Wanganui and its polytechnic and seeing the glass-making
facilities available, he had a change of heart. So both made the brave move of giving up their jobs and lives in Wellington,
for life in a small provincial town and the opportunity to attend art school. After graduating the pair moved to a property
in Martinborough in the Wairarapa, close to family and friends in Masterton and Wellington. They built a studio, and the
property also allows them to be semi self-sufficient with a large vegetable garden, fruit trees and chickens.
When visiting Dennison and Williams and their gang, it’s clear to see that the change of path has paid off. This
body of work has certainly allowed them to take flight, in terms of broadening their horizons, and it is hoped that the
exhibition and accompanying publication are the first in a trail that will document the journey of these extremely skilled
and engaging artistic fancy fools.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Harrod, Tanya, House Trained Objects, in ‘The Craft Reader’, edited by Glenn Adamson, Berg Publishers, 2010, p.512.
2. Natasha Daintry, The Essential Vessel, in ‘Breaking the Mould, new approaches to ceramics’, edited by Cigalle Hanaor, Black Dog Publishing Limited, 2007, p.8.
3. Jane Shadel Spillman, F & C Osler in ‘European Glass Furnishings for Eastern Palaces’, The Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York, 2006, p.51-55.
4. Ruth Guilding, Phoenix from the ashes in ‘The World of Interiors’ (magazine), Condé Nast Publications Ltd, November, 2006, p.53-56
Greg Donson graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree (Honours in Art History) from Victoria University, Wellington, in 2001. He has been Curator/Public programmes
manager at the Sarjeant Gallery since 2006. He is responsible for the overall development, implementation and management of the gallery’s exhibition programme,
including the country’s longest-running artist-in-residence programme, at Tylee Cottage. Key projects in recent years have included the exhibitions Beauty Even – Joanna
Margaret Paul, 2004, co-curated with Emma Bugden; Johanna Pegler – Biophilia, 2006; Regan Gentry – Near Nowhere, Near Impossible; Mark Braunias – London
Town, 2008; Looking Glass: reflecting ideas, 21 New Zealand Glass Artists, co-curated with Grace Cochrane, 2009; ceramics: ANN VERDCOURT a survey, co-curated
with Nicola Jennings, 2010 and The Crystal Chain Gang, Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams: Fancy Fools Flight, 2011.
11 12
13 14
15 16
17 18
19 20
F l i g h t o f t h e F a n c y F o o l
As the old pirate stared glumly at the group of empty glass decanters on the table before him, he had no trouble
making out the rum-soaked insults of his crew that edged their way through the floorboards of his quarters.
A ‘Has-Been’ they called him, his high-seas glory days well and truly over. Putting on posh voices, they mocked
his false pretentions, and claimed that he’d become too lofty ever since he started reading “them books with the curly
words, foreign languages, and gold spines” that lined the walls of his cabin. Why he bothered lugging around such
worthless loot was beyond them. If he’d just stuck to simple, no-nonsense plunder like jewels, gold and tapestries, he
would’ve been all right, they said.
“What a fahn-cy in-te-llec-tyoo-al ’e thinks ’e is,” said one of the men, mockingly sounding out each syllable, “but
’e’s nothing but a FANCY FOOL,” he cried raucously, encouraging his crewmates to repeat the insult in drunken unison.
It hurt the old man to hear the words, even though he’d known for some time that this was how his crew regarded
him. In fact, his desire to prove to them that he remained a true-blue pirate at heart had led him to undertake their latest
adventure on the trail of ‘Solomon’s Glass’.
When he ‘acquired’ the ornately drawn map, he was assured that the treasure they sought was a chest full of
diamonds stolen from the fabled mines of King Solomon. How could he have known, after months at sea battling
storms, rival buccaneers, and near starvation, that the ‘treasure’ would turn out to be a collection of worthless decanters
with novelty stoppers?
The bitterness of his crew was understandable, and it was reasonable that they placed the blame for the failure
of their latest quest squarely at his feet. After all, they had need of their wages like the next man, and they’d be lucky
to earn a gold sovereign between them after this fruitless caper. As the night wore on he listened to their mutinous
whispers and their threats to abandon him and his ill fortune at the next port. He wouldn’t fight them, or hold them to the
terms of their contracts. They were young men, full of high spirits, with adventures to be had and fortunes to be made.
Shackling themselves to this faded pirate wasn’t going to get them far. Well he knew that.
“Face it old man,” he said to himself wearily, “you are a Fool and a Has-Been.”
Leaning his head against the high back of his leather chair, the pirate took comfort from the familiar feeling of the
row of brass studs pressing against the back of his skull. Absent-mindedly he cast his eyes over the decanters arranged
on the table, but the more he looked, the more he felt his weariness recede, his focus begin to sharpen, and his senses
to heighten, as he began to take in the detail of the stoppers on each of the bottles.
They were a strange assortment of creatures, both human and animal, and he soon realised that he was unable to
identify many of them with any degree of accuracy because he had never encountered such beings in his life and travels. The
costumes worn by many of the figures were certainly not from his own time, or country of origin – that much was certain.
21 22
Bronwyn Lloyd
23 24
One intricately carved stopper was the full figure of a bare-chested warrior modeled in a confrontational pose.
He was holding a flat club, and he wore some kind of fibre skirt. His hair was tied in a loose top knot, and a long jewel
dangled from one of his ears.
The bust of a man in uniform was the next stopper to catch the pirate’s attention. He had a long pointed nose and
one of his eyes was obscured by a round disc. He wore a stiff studded collar, and an unusual hat with a short brim and
an ornate badge at the centre, not a bit like the pirate’s own tricorn hat.
Although these and the other cast glass figures were for the most part unfamiliar to the old pirate, at least he could
recognise them as human. Less familiar, though, and infinitely more troubling, were the strange assortment of animal
stoppers in the decanters. He could identify a number of species of bird, as well as a group of oddly angular horse-like
figures, like knights from a carved chess set, but there was one creature with a long-bill, which might have been a duck,
except that its eyes were those of a human and they seemed to be smiling. An even more disquieting creature among
the group had the head and ears of a mouse, the snout of a pig, and the body of a human child.
After close examination of the entire group of decanters, the pirate observed that there was only one bottle which
did not have a carved stopper. It was a plain vessel sealed with a simple transparent cube of glass, with a narrow tube
extending down the neck of the bottle.
While looking at this simple decanter, the pirate’s attention was diverted by a repetitive tapping sound. When he
looked up, he saw that Jamaica, the ship’s cat, had unsheathed her claws and was batting away at the bottle with the
mouse-creature stopper. The pirate shooed Jamaica from the table, and assuming her former vantage point, he noticed
that the candle-light behind the bottle illuminated something within it.
The flame made visible a fine strip of cloth inscribed with a line of text that he recognised as Hebrew. The pirate
carefully translated the words:
‘You are sealed by the orders of Solomon – King of Both Worlds’.
As he pored over the ancient seal, the pirate remembered that the Solomon he had been thinking of as the great
prophet and King of Israel described in the Old Testament was also the magus and sorcerer from The Arabian Nights,
with a thousand glass-roofed houses containing his seven hundred brides, a flying carpet made of green silk, and a
magic signet ring that gave him power over the upper and lower worlds, and the power to seal genies into vessels where
they remained for eternity, unless his sacred seal was broken.
‘Solomon’s Glass,’ the pirate suddenly realised, was not a chest full of diamonds at all, but a collection of genies
sealed into bottles by the great magician himself!
Before the pirate had a chance to reflect on the implications of this momentous discovery, more valuable by far
than any precious stones, Jamaica, the irrepressible mouse hunter, leapt onto the table and, with a single swipe of her
paw, unstoppered the mouse creature bottle. The stopper flew into the air and hit the bottle standing behind it on its way
down, which in turn fell onto the bottle behind that, dislodging its stopper in the process, and so on, and so forth. They
fell like a set of dominoes, until all the bottles lay in disarray on the surface of the wooden table.
One can scarcely describe the scene that followed as a multitude of genies was unleashed into the small space of
the pirate’s cabin. In the tumult and confusion of liberation, the mass of creatures writhed over each other, and through
each other, tangling their tales and limbs and wings, wrestling and kicking, hissing, shouting and squawking, until they
became a great mass of contorted knots, quite unable to break free.
The pirate and the cat cowered in the corner of the cabin, too fearful to move, when the window blew open violently
and a purple emanation gushed into the room, transforming into a huge bearded man with flowing robes.
“Who dares break the seal of Solomon?” the giant figure boomed.
The tangled genies recognised Solomon at once and in a state of panic renewed their efforts to free themselves,
but to no avail. He held out his jewelled finger and the ring released a whip of light that prised each genie from the pile in
turn, restored them to their bottles, and sealed them tightly inside.
When this was done, and the bottles were restored to order, Solomon turned his attention to the pirate, telling him
to take a seat at the table.
“There is a high price to pay for breaking the seal of Solomon,” he said, and it wasn’t hard for the pirate to guess
what that price was likely to be.
Solomon pointed his signet ring at the pirate and the whip of light slowly traced the contours of his face. He then
pointed at the plain bottle on the table and the light beam carved the glass stopper into his exact likeness. When that
was done, Solomon quickly extracted the pirate’s spirit in a painless procedure not dissimilar to removing an item of
clothing, flicked the spirit into the bottle, and sealed it closed with the newly carved stopper. The job done, Solomon
gave a satisfied clap and vanished through the cabin window in a cloud of purple smoke.
When the cook entered the pirate’s cabin the next morning with a breakfast of greasy sardines and weevil-filled
biscuits, he found Jamaica sleeping soundly on the lap of the old man who was sitting lifeless in his chair, his dead eyes
wide open, staring with wonder at the glass bottles assembled on the table.
The cook looked at the decanters and, following his master’s gaze, his eyes alighted on a plain bottle with a stopper that
bore an uncanny resemblance to the old pirate himself, right down to the scar that ran from the corner of his left eye to his chin.
“Well, ain’t that something,” he said aloud, before closing the pirate’s eyes with the flat of his grubby hand, shutting
the cabin window and drawing the curtains, and calling to the men to lower the flag.
“The sad old fool must have drunk himself to death” the hung-over crew agreed over breakfast. They concluded
that it was an honourable way to die, and convenient too, saving them the bother of marooning him on the next desert
island they came to.
Later that morning, they wrapped the old pirate in the faded cotton flag, and cast his body, along with the chest of
worthless glass decanters, into the deep rolling sea.
Bronwyn Lloyd completed a PhD in English at the University of Auckland in 2010. Her doctoral thesis provides a literary and art historical account of Rita Angus’s
Goddess paintings. Since 1999 Bronwyn has published numerous catalogue essays and articles on New Zealand painting, applied arts and design. Bronwyn currently
teaches Academic and Creative Writing at Massey University, School of English and Media Studies (Albany) and works as a freelance writer and curator.
25 26
Jim Dennison was born in 1962 in Masterton, and Leanne Williams was born in 1966 in Wellington. They live in
Martinborough, having worked in glass together for seven years, and as the Crystal Chain Gang since 2004. Williams
gained a BA and Dip. Teaching, from Victoria University, in 1994, and a BFA in Painting, Wanganui Polytechnic, 2001.
Dennison gained a BSc from Victoria University in 1997, and a Diploma of Glass Design at Wanganui Polytechnic in 2001.
Awards: Winners of the Molly Morpeth Canaday Glass Award, Whakatane Museum and Gallery, 2009; Fulbright
travel award, 2009; Creative Glass Centre of America Fellowship from WheatonArts, New Jersey, 2007; Creative New
Zealand grants in 2004, 2007, 2009, 2011. Object of the Year Award, Urbis magazine, 2011.
Solo exhibitions: include Pretty Polly, Anna Bibby Gallery, 2006; Prime Cuts, Masterworks, Auckland 2005; Fancy
Fools Flight, Sarjeant Gallery, 2011-2012, touring nationally 2012 – 2013.
Group exhibitions: include Glass Invitational, Robert McDougall Gallery, Christchurch, and Milford Galleries 2008; New
Zealand Glass, Milford Galleries, Dunedin, 2007; Chandeliers, Objectspace, Auckland 2006; Birds, Pataka Gallery, Porirua,
2006; Southern Exposure, Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark 2004; The Cast, Lopdell House, Auckland, 2002; Looking glass:
reflecting ideas 21 New Zealand glass artists, Sarjeant Gallery and Pataka, 2009 – 2010; The Museum of True History,
Objectspace, Auckland, 2010; 2 potters, 2 glass makers and a man with a pencil, Quay Gallery, Wanganui, 2011.
Commissions: Dennison was commissioned to make ANZAC Memorial pillar, Wanganui Memorial Hall, 2003. The
Crystal Chain Gang, installation commissioned by The Sisters of Compassion for the Carterton Events Centre, 2011.
Chandelier commissioned by Morrison & Co Limited, 2011.
Collections: include Government House, Wellington; Glasmuseet Ebeltoft, Denmark.
Represented by: Avid Gallery, Wellington; Masterworks Gallery, Auckland and Piece Gallery, Matakana.
Web: www.crystalchaingang.co.nz
The Crystal Chain GangJ i m D e n n i s o n & L e a n n e W i l l i a m s
27 28
C u r r i c u l u m V i t a e
Acknowledgements
Jim and Leanne would like to thank the following for making this show all possible:
Greg Anderson and Greg Donson and the rest of the great team at the Sarjeant Gallery. Bronwyn Lloyd for her
wonderful contribution. Alex Glicas and Sarah Bartlett of Mano Design. Creative New Zealand for backing us. Friends
and family that have put up with us for a considerable time! You all know how you are.The wonderful Crystal Chain
Gang : Kajsa Backstrom, Laurel Randolph, Angela Arkham, Tenick and Janet Dennison and of course Willie Fred-Sugar
Dennison. We would also like to especially thank mentor and patron Lloyd Morrison and his wife Julie Nevett who have
supported us from early on in our careers.
• Jim Dennison and Leanne Williams photographed by Jane Ussher, 2010. Image courtesy of NZ Life & Leisure and Jane Ussher.
