Britain’s glassmaking tradition is fracturing

We live in a strange era in which much of our day-to-day experience is constructed for us digitally on a screen. Even in the ‘real’ world, many objects that inhabit our homes will have been designed on a screen, made by computerised machines, and have that flat, wobble-free digital aesthetic – not only electronics, but furniture, tableware, toys, clothes and books.

It is probably impossible to resist this digital colonisation of our physical space altogether but, in some cases, there is an antidote: choosing objects that have been designed and made by hand, or by tools intended to assist humans rather than replace them. I am not talking about fine art but about ‘applied’ or ‘decorative’ arts and crafts, the products of small businesses or makers.

Antique furniture, say, or glassware obje