No, she never learned how to blow glass. It’s “a life’s work that rhythms every day: when the oven is running, you have to work off the contents immediately, as long as the glass can still be formed,” says Ulrike Runde-Orrom. But apart from the first production step, the material also represents a life’s work for the Dießen artist: for almost 40 years she has been working almost exclusively with glass, giving the transparent material form and colour, structure and texture. Her work can be divided into three phases, which went hand in hand with an increase in artistic self-sufficiency. This becomes clear in the large retrospective that is currently on view in the Gallery for Applied Arts of the Bavarian Association of Applied Arts (BKV) in Munich.
Runde-Orrom has been living and working in Diessen since 1991. Her studio on the outskirts of town hardly differs from the ceramic manufactories for which the place is known. Even the kiln she uses to fuse glass is designed for potters. In fact,circle-Orrom also grew up with ceramics – but not in Dießen: Next to their grammar school in Kronach there was a Rosenthal AG factory. After graduating from high school, she also completed an apprenticeship in ceramics near Erding before studying industrial design at the Munich University of Applied Sciences. She then spent three years studying for a master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London – still one of the world’s most renowned design universities today. Characterized by the strict, sober formal vocabulary of the German school, she experienced a kind of culture shock: “I came to decorative, overloaded England completely without ornaments,” recalls Runde-Orrom and laughs.
In England she had time for free creative work with ceramics and porcelain, but in her last year of study she discovered the glass workshop for herself. She designed her first vessels from free-blown, thick glass, which she cut, polished and structured by sandblasting. Up until 1990, this resulted in milky-transparent, often finely patterned bowls with a subtly asymmetrical shape that nonetheless appear perfectly balanced.
circulation-Orrom then worked full-time for two years as a product developer for a glass factory in the Bavarian Forest. When dealing with glass, pure cold processing was not enough for her in the long run. As early as 1984, in a summer course in the USA, she learned how to use sand casting, another technique. In this second phase of his work, positive plaster molds were used to create purposeless but highly decorative objects of archaic beauty. They are similar in their harmonious shape, which ranges from the hemisphere to the sugar loaf to the cylinder and can have points or small protuberances. But otherwise the sculptures are able to tell very different stories: the associations range from the helmet of a warrior from ancient Greece to a jellyfish. Some pieces are covered in sand or rust, others are transparent, often interspersed with metal particles and clouds of paint. The gaze can get lost in it for a long time, just like in the snow globes of childhood: the objects are reminiscent of a flooded island, a seascape or a piece of sky before a thunderstorm. Even in this phase,circulation-orrom is mostly limited to subtle colors, often smoky gray or cool blue contrast with warm earth tones.
Up to 20 hours of work and six firing processes go into their bowls and objects.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
In the 1980s and 1990s she was successful as a freelance designer – also together with her husband James Orrom: “Actually, I financed my own workshop with the licenses for glass and porcelain designs.” After the birth of her second child,circle-orrom was no longer able to travel for days to cast her sculptures in rented glass blowing workshops. In 1998 she set up her studio with her own kiln in Diessen; From then on she devoted herself to the fusing technique, in which shapes are cut from panes of glass and fused together. Temperatures of 800 degrees are sufficient for this, and at least 1400 degrees would be necessary for glass blowing: “Now I no longer have to go where the glass is hot.” Around 30 square meters are available for circulating orrom at the family-owned passive house. At most, competition for space arises with her husband’s model iron construction: the Orroms not only have design studies in common, but also the urge to create fine craftsmanship. “I’m also a tinkerer,” says the artist, showing her sketchbook in which she meticulously records her designs, color formulas and technical techniques. It’s already the eighth volume.
The workshop with oven, sandblasting device, sanding stand, work surfaces and shelves appears sober. “It’s not very romantic,” she finds herself. But her work pieces lend the room radiance. In the third creative phase, function, decor and the manifestation of technical artistry return. With ceramic forms, though, the disks are used to create wave and arch objects – but above all, bowls, which she forms in many variations, from flat and square to calyxes. The colors fused in the glass now also include rich yellows and reds. Howcirculation-orrom creates the fine color stripes, air bubbles and regular patterns is her artistic secret. But she is happy to reveal sources of inspiration: Asian textile art plays a special role here, the filigree ikat weaving has impressed her since her time in London.
Each of their unique pieces takes up to 20 hours of work and six firings: Some are made of four layers, which are first melted individually and then together, repeatedly interrupted by grinding and polishing phases, followed by edge and surface processing. In the end, they radiate complete elegance: simple and yet ornamented, they reveal the trained eye and the absolute taste of Runde-Orrom. “I’m slowly becoming a strictly reduced designer again, the circle is closing,” she says herself.
Clear forms, filigree structures: In her third work phase, Ursula Schweden-Orrom rediscovered decorative patterns.
(Photo: Ursula Schweden-Orrom)
Over the course of 37 years, she has breathed life into her material glass in three quite different ways – first just the surface, then form and color, finally taking substance and structure into her own hands. But just as glass seems to be a state of limbo between solid and liquid, so at every stage Runde-Orrom’s work maintains a delightful balance between technical and organic worlds, graphic discipline and natural playfulness, organization and inspiration. Among the awards, the Bavarian State Prize with a gold medal in 2001 stands out, and objects by the artist have been and are being exhibited in numerous exhibitions, including in Japan, South Korea, Great Britain and Denmark.
In the ADK pavilion on the Dießener Dampfersteg and in the Gallery for Applied Arts in Munich, Pacellistrasse 6-8, individual objects by Ulrike Runde-Orrom can always be seen. The work exhibition there is open until July 4, Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. A 260-page, attractively designed catalog has also been published for 35 euros, which can also be ordered from the artist: Tel. 08807/4510, [email protected]