One on One — Breaking Loose

David Reekie is not one to let life’s circumstances get him down, even when London traffic control puts a boot on his car. "My car is parked legally, but they clamped it anyway," he says, calling from his mobile phone. "But don’t worry, I’ll just take the bus instead. Be there shortly!" An hour later, Reekie arrives, a chagrined smile on his face. "This is why I live in Norwich and not London," he announces.

Though urban problems and their resulting human impact are central to his work, Reekie, one of Britain’s premier glass sculptors, forgoes his native London to reside in a small town two hours to the north. The region better suits his easygoing style. "My studio is in a large brick building toward the back of our property. I just go out the door and I’m at work. Plus, my wife and I have a large garden and an elderly flock of geese out back."

His light-hearted approach to life blends with thought-provoking social commentary in his glass creations, which have been well received from Tokyo to Sweden. This fall, he is a featured artist at SOFA Chicago, debuting works from his new Robot series. The 56-year-old artist often focuses on humanity, from mankind’s inability to get along to the importance of individuality.

"I get a lot of enjoyment from my work," Reekie says. "I’m never lacking in ideas because I’m always looking at the world around me, and it’s changing all the time. I’m a political person who believes in society, and I want people to get a fair deal out of life. I quite enjoy using my work to touch on that but not in an in-your-face kind of manner."

Instead, Reekie relies on irony and wit to deliver his thoughtful messages. "There are actually two sides to my work," he says. "Some are subtle, meaningful pieces, in which I’m commenting on society in quite a serious manner. Others are humorous pieces, much more like cartoon caricatures. These use a lot of color and exaggerated movements."

"The Inept Juggler," for example, combines pool balls, Band-Aids and a comic figure. "He is a juggler juggling lives," says Reekie, "like a politician making decisions for a lot of people—decisions that work or don’t work but still affect many lives."

Some of Reekie’s works are self-mocking. "We all have things that we know are wrong with us," he says with that ever-present grin. "For example, I’m indecisive, and sometimes I have a difficult time finding the right words."

"Trouble with Numbers" and "When Things Don’t Add Up" make light of his frustration with math. Part of his Self-Portrait series, the replicas of his head are sunk to below the mouth in blocks of glass and surrounded by a jumble of numerals.

Other self-portraits have tiny copper wires sticking out straight from the head. "People were always asking why I didn’t give my figures hair, so I did," he jokes.

More recent works explore the beauty of repetitive glass forms. The figurative men in "Living in Confined Spaces" point out mankind’s tendency to build internal walls. "It’s about how we make our own little cages or prisons," Reekie explains. "We place restrictions upon ourselves, like what we eat, the way we think and our notions of physical and political space." While physical restrictions can always be challenged, the artist says, the limitations that we pose on ourselves are more worrying.

"Rising Tension," shown at Thomas R. Riley Galleries in Seattle, is another figurative piece that reveals Reekie’s deep concerns for the world. "It relates to terrorism or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he notes. "This is showing my frustration about people’s stubbornness and inability to get along."

But it is often Reekie’s ability to touch on the universality of the human spirit that draws people to his work, gallery owner Tom Riley says. "He gives us a chance to laugh at ourselves, catching us at odd moments, those situations we’ve all been in."

Growing up in East London, Reekie never dreamed that he would one day become an artist.  

“My family didn’t influence me in art,” he says matter-of-factly. “Somebody just noticed at school that I could draw, so they suggested I go to art school.”

He ended up at Stourbridge College of Art near Birmingham, where he found inspiration under the tutorage of Harry Seager, a glass artist who was often ahead of his time, and Keith Cummings, who is now seen as the father of English cast glass.

“The town of Stourbridge is the heart of the glass industry,” says Reekie, “and even though many of those factories are closed now, at that time, the college was influenced by the local industry.”

That local tradition appealed to the young art student. “I was fascinated that you could take a sheet of window glass, put it into an electric kiln and that it would bend and melt,” he says. “I become aware of glass as a liquid material, and was more interested in controlling and molding the glass, making it into sculpture rather than blowing it.”

It was during those formative years that he met the true love of his life, his wife Pam, who is a painter. “We just fell in love,” Reekie says. “She was 18, and I was 21.”

After college, the young couple struggled to make a living and still follow their artistic calling. To raise money, Reekie worked on construction sites. Finally, in 1975, he was offered a glass-making fellowship in Lincoln. (“That’s the town where Robin Hood came from,” Reekie pipes in.) A year later, the young artist helped found British Artists in Glass. This alliance eventually brought Reekie’s work some well-deserved international attention.

In 1998, he was awarded a Winston Churchill Fellowship in Glass in the USA. Reekie’s work is currently shown in America by Thomas R. Galleries in Washington and Ohio.

Not content with just his own work, Reekie is an avid collector as well. “Pam and I love collecting early 20^th century British glass,” he says. “We look for Monart Glass, which was produced in Scotland from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. We’ve found about 20 pieces in junk and antique shops so far.”

The couple’s three grown children -- Bella, Morag and Duncan -- all are involved in creative work of their own. “We never pushed them in the arts," Reekie says. "It’s just innate in them. Bella is an Associate Producer for a childrens’ film series called ‘Bob the Builder,’ Morag just got a degree in sculpture and Duncan is doing a photography degree in South Hampton.” 

Reekie’s other passion is Soul/R&B music from the 1960’s. “I really like Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke, Ottis Redding and Aretha Franklin,” he states. “The lyrics of this music hit home with me. I think young kids from working class backgrounds related a lot to black music from that time. Plus, it’s great music to dance to!”

The artist’s most recent work has focused on the individual. “Every person tries to hold onto their individuality despite social and commercial trends,” says Reekie.

“A Captive Audience,” which was commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, explores individuality and breaking away from the crowd while touching on the questions of genetic cloning. “I used the repeated form to give the feeling of a group,” Reekie explains. “This is about how individuality is under threat and about how our personality breaks through no matter how society wants to make us all the same.”

Many have likened the British artist to a political cartoonist, making comment in a satirical manner.

“I’m an optimist,” says Reekie, “and I enjoy laughing and having fun.” Still, there is a deeper side of the artist’s work that comes through loud and clear, touching viewers with its very human emotions. “My work continues to change and evolve,” Reekie says, “and as it develops, it tells its own story, a story to which I keep adding.”
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Colorado-based Janna Graber enjoys covering international stories for AmericanStyle. The best part of her work, she says, is getting to meet people like David Reekie.

 To view more of David Reekie’s work, visit www.davidreekie.com