About Me

Phil Drew is a relatively new glass blower, having taken up the craft just before Covid, visiting the Glass Hub in Trowbridge. During the pandemic he and his partner Ben taught themselves to make bigger and more colourful, intricate pieces inspired by nature, including the plant-life in their garden in Gillingham. Phil approaches glass from a surprising angle, his previous careers having been in physics and industrial finance, but he sees all three as an expression of natural forces.

“There is a huge overlap among the apparently disparate elements of my life. Physics, finance and glass share incredible commonalities which surprise those not “in the know”. The mathematics of randomness push both physical forms and economic structures into familiar shapes. The unforecastable changes in market prices mimic the flow of heat, and a glass blower constantly keeps a mental map of the heat diffusing through a piece of work, whilst chilling and heating selective areas, ‘managing’ a natural process.”

Phil has continued to push his aesthetic in the direction of the American Studio style, creating vivid expressions of the delicate beauty and intricate detail found in natural forms. His work embraces the fundamentally unknowable outcomes of glass blowing, allowing and encouraging randomness, asymmetry and surprise. Sharing a great deal in common with ceramics, he balances and manages gravity, rotation, heat and time, encouraging a piece towards his vision but also allowing it to take its own direction.

“Ultimately, my work is a celebration of the interconnectedness of natural processes, reminding us of the profound links between mathematics, nature and art.”