International Festival of Glass 2026
In August 2026, we were honoured to visit St Helens for the International Festival of Glass - a celebration of glassmaking held only once every two years, and the only festival of its kind in the UK.
Peter Layton, Louis Thompson, Bruce Marks, Daisy Parkinson and Liam Reeves were invited to give a demonstration in the hotshop to celebrate 50 years of London Glassblowing. They created 'I Never Promised You a Rose Garden', a piece that revisits an ambitious sculptural work first made at the International Glass Symposium in Nový Bor in 2012, now part of the permanent collection in the Glass Museum there.
It explores the symbolism of disparate imagery through the juxtaposition of incongruous hot glass elements - here, the delicacy of a floral form set against the savage beauty of barbed wire.
Congratulations to all the artists who won an award at the festival. These include Layne Rowe, James Maskrey, and Olga Alianova. Come see their work in our gallery.
Our Stories
The Alchemist at Work: An Interview with Peter Layton
For Peter Layton's solo exhibition, our Marketing and Sales Assistant Eva sat down with Peter to talk about alchemy - from his birth in Prague, a city steeped in alchemical history, to the alchemy he finds in glass itself. Read on to hear how Peter revisited his earlier works for this exhibition, and why he chose to return to the dangerous iridising process.
Peter and Tim at the annual Glass Art Society Conference
Ahead of their trip to New York for the annual Glass Art Society Conference at the Corning Museum of Glass, Peter and Tim shared an insightful talk with guests at our gallery. In this special preview of the presentation they would go on to deliver at the world-renowned museum, Peter and Tim looked back on more than fifty years of craftsmanship and community. From there, they headed to Corning, New York, for the conference itself.
Our Glass Community Reflect on Peter Layton
To mark fifty years of London Glassblowing, we asked artists, collaborators and friends to share what the studio has meant to them. Their answers span five decades - from first encounters at the hotshop to lifelong friendships. What emerges is a portrait of a community built around one man's vision, and the remarkable things that vision made possible.