We’re obsessed with Devyn Ormsby’s glass fruit sculptures. Made to look like vintage fake fruit (the kind of plastic fruit your grandparents might have kept in a decorative bowl), her creations include a translucent banana, pear, mandarin, and lemon, colored in pink, blue, yellow, and lime.
Ormsby has graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2015 and currently works in a Glass Studio based in Auckland, New Zealand. Her fruit series, named aptly “Devon Made,” is said to explore the familiar ornament and reimagines it in a new form.
Through the process of glass casting techniques, the glass artist pays homage to the blown glass fruit makers and collectors from the 1960’s. The light playful approach to everyday fruit is contrasted with the heaviness of the crystal glass. A unique material that catches and reflects light.
In an interview with MOLD, Ormsby noted that fake fruit was “usually made from various materials [like] plastic, Lucite, glass or wood” and was typically “light, simplistic and exaggerated in form.” She sought to create a collection that stayed true to the traditional form of fake fruit, while also having the weight of crystal glass.
Explaining the process itself, she says she begins “by making a silicone mold of the original object, from which [she] can make wax replicas. The next step is to fettle (trim and clean) the wax, filling holes and removing any seams… Once that is done, [she] begins building a contour mold around the wax. This is made up of many layers of a plastic/silica mix built around the shape of the fruit.”
