It’s a raindrop caught in motion. A wave arriving upon a shore, its translucent fingers reaching out, sea splash catching just before it crashes down. It is bright and it is luminous. Impossibly intricate and incredibly pleasurable. It is day and night. Sunrise and sunset. It is a face trapped behind a wall of water, those delicate features rippling behind a halted downpour. It is something magic and unimaginable. That feeling of seeing a moment caught in time. The perfect marriage of alchemy and desire, culminating into something we can touch and feel. Experience and be changed by. It is a life’s work which has spanned across a generation. It is the thing we see in our dreams, indescribable but so very real. It is a moment caught in glass, just waiting for you to reach out and touch it.
For four decades, one family in Stonyford, County Kilkenny have been working in the face of incredible heat. In 1979, Keith and Kathleen Leadbetter stepped foot inside an old Dutch barn which would soon become their life's work, Jerpoint Glass Studio. Having studied pottery in his youth, it didn’t take long for Keith to explore new avenues to express his creativity, travelling to Sweden to study glassblowing at the renowned Orrefors Glassblowing School. During his time there, Keith navigated his way around 1100c heat, studying the intricacies of glass and becoming infatuated with the Scandinavian style in the process. And returning home to Ireland, it was a match made in heaven as with Kathleen by his side the couple set to work on their new endeavor. Always one to have a keen eye for aesthetic and style, Kathleen’s input was invaluable in creating the incomparable sculptures which exist today, adding her own color to each of their many creations. From heather to seascape, Jerpoint’s signature colored glass has been inspired by its surroundings and the people who breathe life into each piece which cools within its walls. Today, the studio and experimental creativity are as alive as they ever were, over the past four decades as Keith and Kathleen’s children have become an integral part of the family business, adding their own flair to Jerpoint’s creations.
And with everything from rainbow to monochrome adorning their shelves it seems that many more special experiences are only moments away from being captured in time, waiting to be discovered.
