“..you take a minute longer to think and your gather is no longer hot enough. Or you just miss the right moment or make a wrong movement and it is all gone… But we keep learning. You dream about an object, make drawings, everything is prepared well, everybody is ready and then everything changes right there by the furnace. Sometimes glass will have the last say.”
Ondřej Strnadel (*1979) was born in Valašské Meziříčí, where he still lives. He started to work with glass at the Secondary School of Glass Arts and Crafts in Valašské Meziříčí, and after a short study at the Faculty of Education at Palacký University in Olomouc, he finished his studies at the Industrial Design Studio under the guidance of professor and sculptor Pavel Škarka at the Tomas Bata University, Faculty of Multimedia Communications in Zlín.
Since 2000 he has been working as a teacher at the SUPŠ glass school in Valašské Meziříčí and at the University of Tomáš Bat’a, Faculty of Multimedia Communications. He realized glass sculptures for important Czech glassmakers, for example for Vladimír Kopecký, Jiří Šuhájek and others. He animates his objects, mainly based on geometric shapes of a circle or oval, with subtle deformations. Thanks to them, glass in its solid state still retains the magical charm of its hot liquid soul. “… all one has to do is to linger a little and go and warm up the product later. Or you just miss, it’s somewhere else. You learn by making mistakes. When you dream something, draw it and prepare it, it’s still different on the kiln. In the end, the glass often says its own thing.”
Interview:
Ondřej Strnadel: In the hot shop, you are never alone
Ondřej Strnadel: Glass and shape to speak common language