Paperweight c. 20th century

This paperweight was made by an anonymous artist, with the medium of glass. There is a playfulness to the way the glass has been manipulated. You can see how it might have been worked and reworked, each layer building upon the last, like adding colours to a canvas. This process of making and unmaking, of adding and subtracting, is central to how I think about art. Look at how the coloured pieces are suspended, almost floating, within the clear glass. The eye is drawn to the details: the bubbles, the swirls, the way the light catches the surface. The streaks of silver that fan out from the base, giving it a sense of depth and movement, remind me of Cy Twombly’s scribbled lines. Both seem to want to capture a moment, an emotion, a fleeting idea, with a sense of joyful abandon. In the end, the paperweight becomes more than just a functional object. It's a reminder that art can be found in the most unexpected places, and that the process of making is just as important as the final result.