Glass artist Emma Goring on why originality has nothing to do with technique

Emma Goring came to glass through a decision to stop doing what was expected of her. When her mother became seriously ill while she was at secondary school, everything changed.

“I wanted to pursue my passions and do something creative,” she says, “that every day would be different and I would wake up in the morning really looking forward to what I had going on that day.”

Goring is one of three creators taking part in The Creators, a film series produced in partnership with Jaguar, exploring what it means to approach your practice with originality.

Her Calyx series, inspired by coral reefs, is among the work she brought to her conversation with Jaguar lead materiality designer Axel Goulée and multi-disciplinary artist Annabel MacIver.

Now based in Nottinghamshire, Goring works in hot glass – a medium she describes as built on contradiction. Perceived as fragile and breakable, glass is in practice immensely durable.

“When you’re working with glass, it’s gooey and molten,” she says, adding that people carry an assumption the material will be sharp, when in reality the forms she makes are rounded and smooth, designed to draw the viewer in rather than warn them off.

Originality, for Goring, isn’t a matter of novelty. Glassmaking has a history spanning thousands of years and there are, as she puts it, no new techniques.

“The way to stand out is to have something that’s very truthful and honest and original. By portraying myself through my glass art, the viewer or the audience are going to know that is me.”

All three films in the The Creators series will be made available on Attitude’s YouTube channel across June.