Alena Matejkova

'Magic Carpet' Research Project

In March 2004, Alena Matejkova, the Czech Glass artist in residence at the IIRG and National Glass Centre completed her major research project titled `Magic Carpet'. Matejkova first visited the University of Sunderland's Glass department in March 2003 where she rapidly began to develop her ideas over a period of three months. After a break she returned again in January 2004 to continue the research and experimentation and brought the project to a successful conclusion on 3rd March. 

Matjekova's project included a number of pieces in cast glass, the most outstanding being the two largest carpets both of which are creatively challenging and technologically unique.  Indeed, they are some of the largest piece ever cast in the UK, weighing over 300kg each. Executing works on such a grand scale was made possible by using the University Glass Department casting kiln facility, which is one of the largest in Europe. The colouring of the pieces is also unusual and was the result of using Bonas glass which comes from the Czech Republic. Two of Matjekova's carpets have subsequently become part of the IIRG's Study Collection.

Sylva Petrova, Research Professor and Director of IIRG asks Alena 10 questions: 

Sylva Petrova: You studied at the prestigious University in Prague at the Glass Department under the internationally famous Professor Vladimir Kopecky. Can you tell me something about your choice of studies and your life "before" the University? What is so specific about Kopecky's educational methods? 

Alena Matejkova: I studied under Professor Vladimir Kopecky, and it was the best I could have wished for. He gives his students such freedom that for some of them it is difficult to bear it. It suited me perfectly. And his methods of teaching? His educational methods can hardly be defined; he teaches by example , who he is and what he does. He has the soul of a poet and requires originality from everybody. He expects independent thinking and accepts idiosyncrasies of all kinds, For his students he has a great authority without trying to impose it. His indomitable personality, the fact that he grants creative freedom, and his openness to everything new seems to be the reason why so many young people wish to study at his department.
In the Czech Republic studies at colleges and universities are subject to a rigorous selective process, and only few are chosen. However, Professor Kopecky did not choose me and I did not choose him. I enrolled at Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague after the fifth attempt, since during socialism it was really difficult without having friends or influence. I was from a small town and my parents were ordinary people, they were not Communist Party members. I could not imagine doing anything else but art. I took exams to the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague every year; every year I prepared for them and every year I was rejected. I worked at odd jobs in a factory, ironing laundry, cleaning at the National Gallery. I was not accepted until my fifth attempt in 1989. In October the school started, and in November the Velvet Revolution broke out. The old structures were falling apart, many professors were asked to leave their positions. Older students in the Glass Department, where I studied for my first year, proposed as the new professor Vladimir Kopecky, who accepted this offer. So Kopecky was given to me by fate, for which I am grateful. 

SP: How do you make a living after graduation? 

AM: I have never accepted the compromise to make a living by something else than what I enjoy doing. Maybe it sounds conceited, somebody may think that he or she cannot afford such a luxury, but I have a feeling that it is a question of decision. If I have an idea and start to realize it, the energy for its realization will come and things will begin to happen by themselves. I make sculptures from glass and stone. I also like design and cutting from ice blocks at the "North Pole". I think I can say that I am happy, because from an optimistic point of view my life is one big holiday, during which I entertain myself by work. 

SP: Do you feel any difference between an "artist" and a "glass artist"? What is your artistic credo?

AM: I have never liked distinguishing between glass artists and the others. If a sculpture has a content, at least for a while, it may be from any material. Such as fog, if you please. 

SP: How did you get to the University of Sunderland?

AM: I received a leaflet attached to the journal studio glass, sent to me by Zafar Iqbal from London. He is my messenger of good tidings. The other day he met me in the lobby of the University of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague and gave me an application to the competition "Jung Glass" in Ebeltoft, Denmark. I won. This time he was behind my sojourn in Sunderland. But it was preceded by a tender. I submitted my project, photographic documentation, and in the last round there was an interview in Prague at the British Council, where I was asked many questions by Ann Jones from the Visiting Arts in London and National Glass Centre and Dr. Kevin Petrie from the University of Sunderland. Subsequently, they both helped me a lot during my stay in Sunderland. Ann Jones invited me to London, where she organized for me meetings with people from the world of art, museum curators, gallery owners and artists. Ann personally was a great support for me and a kindred spirit in all matters concerning the organisation of my project. 

SP: Was it your first experience with the British art education?

AM: Many years ago, I studied for three months in Britain at the Glasgow School of Art, where I acquainted myself with ceramics, but above all I fell in love with the "lochs and brochs" of northern seas, grassy hills and abandoned abbeys. 

SP: Can you tell me something about your project?

AM: My project has been dormant in my head for a long time. Having traveled through the fairytale landscapes of Great Britain, as if from time immemorial sunk in the mist of the magical fog, I saw hundreds of menhirs and stones with carved ornaments. The ancient landscape and the raw gloominess of the gravestones excited me, and therefore I wanted to convey at least a part of that into my world. Into the world that contemporary man would understand. This idea has not faded away over the years, and so I drafted the project that was selected. I created Magic Carpets, which as the means of transportation from fairytales. These float in the skies and connect the distant Middle Ages with modern technologies of the British present. The technical equipment available both at the University of Sunderland and National Glass Centre is fascinating indeed.
When I came to Sunderland, I looked for ornaments in the neighbourhood. Steve Cowie from the National Glass Centre took me to St. Peter's Church, the historically oldest place in Sunderland, but the ornaments in the church. Later, a student at the University of Sunderland, Goshka Bailek took me to see the Norman Chapel at nearby Durham Castle, where the ornament on one of my Magic Carpets comes from.
For other ornaments I went to my old places to the south of Scotland, but I have discovered even more beautiful and derelict little cemeteries and chapels in the southwest. This is where the ornament on my second Magic Carpet comes from.
The excellent equipment and friendly atmosphere as well as the help of teachers, technical staff and students during my work made the both of stays very pleasant. I greatly appreciated in particular your personal and professional support and your expert knowledge, which you shared with me. 

SP: What did you learn from the project?

AM: The high level of technical equipment of the University of Sunderland University inspired me to produce sculptures on a larger scale which I cannot make in the small kiln in my studio. The giant university kiln, in which no one had ever made such a large sculpture, presented a professional challenge for me. I am excited by overcoming limits. I have never made such a huge thing before, and although I have a lot of experience and professional technological training, I still discussed the whole technological process with Zdenek Lhotsky, who in my opinion is the greatest expert for large-scale melted sculptures. Never before did I make such large moulds, and so everything was new for me and full of expectation. For my sculptures I used the glass manufactured in the Czech Republic in the workshop of Rudolf Banas. Thus I introduced his glass to university students, who tried it with excellent results. I cannot say that I have learned to melt large sculptures, but I am pleased that the casting was successful and that I have created ones of the biggest sculptures ever cast in Britain. At the same time I have met many wonderful people and discovered new places and things, which is refreshing. 

SP: Did you finish everything?

AM: I began a large project, and although I worked with a great effort, I was not able to finish my work during the first visit in 2003. What remained to be done was the slumping of the Magic Carpets in the kiln in such a way that they would "fly". I tried this technological process on smaller Carpets, which I presented at the exhibition "Czechmania" at the National Glass Centre before my departure 2003. I had the mould for slumping ready, it just waited for an opportunity of a second visit. The University of Sunderland in co-operation with the National Glass Centre made it possible during the first two months of 2004 year. I had chance to complete the whole project, and I was very pleased. 

SP: Where and when are you going to present the result of your project?

AM: I would like to present my sculptures in Sunderland, in the town where they came into being, in the country which inspired their creation. Thus I can demonstrate the possibilities provided by the university kiln. Next year I would show them at an exhibition in Sweden together with the series of Magic Carpets cut in stone, which I am working on at the moment. Then, of course, I would like to exhibit all of them in Prague and hopefully one of them in the exhibition curated by you in Japan during EXPO 2005.

Alena Matjekova is exhibiting regularly; she has had more than 10 solo shows in the Czech Republic, USA, Netherlands and Sweden.

To see images of Alena's work click here .