Blue Mountains Artists Connection: Member Profile

Leslie Hunter

Lampworked glass beads with garnet briolettes and gold findings

As a glass artist and fashion jeweller, I am inspired by the drama of glass. The factors that influence my work are elusive – more internal than external – but possibly stem from early travels through Asia and Europe. Glass has become the medium through which I can channel a natural eye for design and colour, capturing those influences in a luxurious and tactile form. My work involves lampworking and kiln firing numerous types of glass with a special love of ‘funky’ Dichroic with its spectacular colours and dramatic reaction to firing. Working with glass takes me to a place where the creativity is immediate and everything else is blocked out. It is therapeutic and meditative – simple joy in a complex world.

I import most of my glass and all of my jewellery findings from around the world – England, the USA, Mexico, Thailand and Porto Rico. I love the thrill of the chase in discovering and incorporating these findings into my work in much the same way as I loved shell and pebble hunting on the beaches of New Zealand as a child. Most of all I love the fact that my artwork brings beauty to other people’s lives.”

In early 2008 I was selected to participate as a Jewellery Designer in Rosemount Australian Fashion Week and in August ‘08 I was again selected to participate in the inaugural Sydney Fashion Festival. In 2009 I was invited to participate in the Dubai Fashion Festiva. Various pieces from my latest Spring/Summer 2010 range are to be worn by Mrs Ohio first week of September in the upcoming Mrs America Pageant.

My work is featured in Sydney based www.thewhitebook.com and in New York based www.seekingdesigners.com It has also been used by stylists for Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia Magazine and the Sydney Emporium. You can check it out on my website at www.cicadasymphony.com.au and you may also care to check out my blog at http://cicadasymphony.typepad.com/cicadasymphony/

Woodlands Studio which I share with my husband, Vic, is open to the public most weekends between 10am and 4pm. The address is 25 Nelson Avenue, Wentworth Falls in the beautiful Blue Mountains of New South Wales.

I am currently extending my creative reach by studying digital photography, photoshop and in design at TAFE.

A poet by nature and glass artist by passion, I seem to have an entrepreneurial spirit, which, along with my training in film production, is hopefully being put to good effect as CEO of the Blue Mountains Artists Company.

Lampworked glass beads with amber and hemelite.

Lampworked glass beads with turquoise and aquamarine.

Lampworked glass beads with acquamarine, Peru opals and silver.

Lampworked glass beads with agate, silver and hemelite.