Bibi Smit

''As a child I was always drawing, and from the age of ten onwards, I was really drawn to watercolour. Looking back, I think watercolour has something innate that glass also has: a kind of transparency, immediacy and spontaneity. Hot glass for me seems to be alive, the way that it flows and moves and radiates light, it totally fascinates me. I take photographs of things that interest me, sometimes not knowing why, and it may take five or ten years before a piece develops from a series of photographs or sketches or ideas that I have had'' Bibi Smit.

 

Bibi Smit is a Dutch glass artist and designer. Her work explores the patterns, rhythms and colors of movement in nature. Her creative process focuses on the relationship between natural phenomena and the fluidity of hot glass, experimentation and craftsmanship. By controlling all processes, both in the hot shop and the cold shop, her work demonstrates a keen eye for detail and technology. 

 

Bibi Smit grew up in the Netherlands and moved to England to study glass at the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham, England. She did an internship with Willem Heesen, in De Oude Horn in Leerdam, the Netherlands. In 1988 she received her Bachelor of Art (honours) and became a glass assistant to Annica Sandstrom and David Kaplan at Lindean Mill Glass in Scotland.

 

In 2003 Bibi Smit received an Artist in Residency Award at North Lands Creative in Scotland. In 2004 she was invited to participate in the 7th International Glass Symposium in Germany and attended a workshop with Boyd Sugiki at the Pilchuck Glass School in Seattle. She is also a member of the Glass Art Society.

 

In 2019, the documentary Moving Glass was selected for the North Lands Creative Film Festival. The Glassmaker episode of the HBO series World of Calm is a poetic story of Bibi's work and the power of nature. 

 

Her work is included in various private and public collections, including the National Museum of Scotland (UK), National Glass Museum Leerdam (NL), Museum Jan (NL), Glass Museum Lednické Rovne (SK), North Lands Creative Glass Collection (UK), Museum für Glaskunst (DE) and the Glass Museum Alter Hof Herding, Ernsting-Stiftung (DE).