Blowing Glass

A new month, a new launch from IKEA we’re simply mad about! The Swedish furniture company has teamed with eight contemporary artists around the world, asking each to to produce a unique crystal glass figurine as part of its Art Event collection. One of these artists, Nathan Jurevicius, represents Canada hoot-fully with his wide-eyed owl figurine, named Sutemos. We chatted with Nathan about his creation—and urge you to go pick up his and the other figures in the collection while you can, as they’ll only be around while supplies last. —Noa Nichol

Hi Nathan! Tell us a bit about yourself and your work.

Hi there! I’m a Canadian/Australian artist based in Toronto. I graduated with a bachelor of design in 1995 and initially worked as a freelance editorial illustrator for mostly business-related magazines. As the years progressed I started to move into animation and interactive media, which lead to my most known project, Scarygirl. This started out as a toy line and comic series with a Hong Kong-based design company and eventually grew into games for Xbox/Playstation, a free-roam VR experience (currently in production) and an animated feature film (in pre-production). Currently my time is split between directing animated projects and games as well as producing fine art (my favourite medium being pencil and watercolour).

How did you feel when IKEA approached you about being one of just eight artists involved in this collection?

It was a real honour. IKEA pieces are scattered around my apartment and naturally feel like part of my everyday life. Designing something that will hopefully be a beautiful and lasting object in many people’s homes makes me smile.

Have you worked with glass before?

My father is a potter and I’ve played around with clay, moulds and kilns but never with glass. It’s very different and an exciting medium. I became quite addicted and went down a number of research rabbit holes looking into glass-blowing techniques as well as glazes and the history of glass-making. I’d love my next project with glass to be a full chess set or a dinner setting.

Tell us about your owl figurine: the inspiration, the process and the outcome.

I created a handful of designs for the IKEA Art Event collection before my final concept was signed off. The Sutemos piece came about partly through limitations in theme by IKEA and also my goal to infuse an owl likenesses in many of my creations for clients. The art director of the collection wanted something he felt was signature to each artist—a totem of sorts that could easily be associated back to each creator. I have two signature worlds (Peleda and Scarygirl) that could have been used but the Peleda (owl) world is not tied to other companies and wrapped up in licensing deals, etc. I tend to use the owl universe as a way of escaping my other brand—there’s a sense of freedom and exploration within it. A lot of this love for owls came through my Lithuanian and Latvian heritage. There’s many stories in Baltic mythology that have the owl featured—sometimes as nature spirits, gods or as protective guides. IKEA knew I had a strong link to this bird in my work and wanted me to express it in glass for this collaboration. There was a number of weeks where we played around with multiple owl designs—some very conceptual and others iconic. We settled on two and tried two different glass-making methods. The first owl was blown glass into a heavy metal mould. I was able to have a hands-on experience blowing the glass in Sweden to see the finished product. I asked the glassworks to experiment with a metallic gradation for this version. The second design was a two-part mould with poured glass and then joined together. This owl had sand-blasted eyes to create a different texture and feel to the glass and the back was coloured to allow the light to reflect throughout the clear glass. It created a beautiful effect. This was the version we settled on as the final design to be released worldwide. I choose green, as this is my favourite colour. The colour green appears throughout much of my work and especially my toy/sculpture designs. It evokes a lot of emotions and themes throughout my life. Green is the colour of nature, life, peace and creativity. Green also represents the idea of "go"—to start or green-light something. Recently I’ve been fortunate to have a feature film and game be green-lit after many years of struggle—it has a good word association.

So, are you an early bird or, like your figurine, a night owl?

The name of my figure is Sutemos, which means nightfall in Lithuanian. For me this time of the day is my most creative and ideas rapidly flow. Owls are generally nocturnal so there’s further meaning in the name and my own functional rhythms. That was a long way of saying, "Yes, I’m a night owl!"

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