Lines Through Light: Stephen Procter

By Dan Klein, Stephen Procter
RLDI Rob Little Digital Imaging
Carwoola, New South Wales, Australia
$78

In a career of some three decades, the British-born artist and teacher Stephen Procter (1946-2002) created a serene, accomplished oeuvre that encompassed glass works, but also paintings and drawings that reflected his aesthetic concerns. After studying both engineering and agriculture, Procter became a glass engraver, but dissatisfied working with pre-made forms, he traveled to glass workshops in Austria, learning prismatic cutting, fine carving and glassblowing. Ultimately Procter's mature works-fused, blown, cut and engraved spherical vessels-seamlessly combined the techniques he had mastered. In 1992, Procter and his family moved to Canberra, Australia, to become head of the Glass Workshop at the Australian National University, from which position he exerted an important influence on Australian glass.

This elegantly designed book presents more than 100 of Procter's works, the images accompanied by his poetic musings on his art, gleaned from his notebooks. "I often think of my pieces, as volumes of light, like still clouds filled to the brim with reflected light," he writes. The essay by the glass specialist Dan Klein offers insight into Procter's philosophy and ability to create expressions of light. "Light above all inspired his thinking, light as the key to life, light as birth and death (day and night), light as the most powerful force in nature."