NGWENYA GLASS - eSWATINI - EARLY SIGNATURE -1980

It had been some time since I have found something a bit different and last week I came home with a little footed bowl with a signature that had me stumped : a mystery mark that was revealed to be an early signed example of ‘Ngwenya Glass’ from 1980.

H: 6 cm.
W: 14 cm

Thinking it was Australian I had put it up on the Australian Made Art Glass Collectors FB site and an expert there “Brewster” gave a correct reading of ‘Ngwenya Glass’ :

“I think you'll find it is signed Ngwenya Glass 1980 for the studio in Swaziland that opened in 1979. As a development aid project (started by Sweden), it has attracted many international visiting glass artists over the years. Let Google be your guide for more information.”

I noted that the firm exists today in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) and that ‘Ngwenya’ means crocodile in eSwazi - a crocodile image appears on the stickers applied to the glass these days. (https://www.shop.ngwenyaglass.co.sz/)

Rosie Pearce had also commented : “interesting bowl, and you can see the Swedish influence in it if you look at similar bowls by Göran Wärff. I very much like the ethos of using recycled glass in this way. One of the advantages of paying schoolchildren for collecting glass bottles left lying around, was the reduction in the number of bushfires that were started by the suns’ rays being intensified through the glass onto the dry scrub.”

A search of the Heart of Glass FB site gave me some examples of glass bearing that sticker but not a signed example from the early period of the factory. I needed to do some more research.

As Brewster had noted it was a Swedish couple Bo and Illona Aspling who had arrived with Marie Höglund and Willy Andersson from Kosta as assistants in 1978 as part of a Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) project and began the building of the site that became Ngwenya Glass Factory. The furnaces began production in January 1979.

Going back in time even further it seems that Illona Aspling had taken up a regular teaching position in Orrefors in 1967. Her husband moved there too and answered an ad to be employed at Orrefors Glasbruk as an engineer with the task of creating a school for glass-blowers engravers etc. That school was opened in 1969. Bo Aspling slipped sideways into the glass industry himself and set up his own glass-hut at Varberg in 1972. While working there he was approached by a Technical Advisor to the Ministry of Industry in Swaziland in 1975 to see if he would like to go to Africa and set up a glassworks there. In 1976 he did a three week visit to Swaziland and took up their offer to create a glassworks returning to Sweden to plan and purchase the materials necessary and organise the creation of the project with SIDA support. In March 1978, he traveled with his wife Illona and three children to Swaziland and it took the rest of that year before the factory was ready and able to be opened in early 1979. They remained there until 1981 when they returned to Sweden leaving the works in good shape for a good three years with 35 employees under the leadership of Kosta Boda’s new project manager. At that time it was called Swazi Glass Craft, and produced a line of African glass animals and decorative glass by re-using clear glass bottles. However due to a lack of competent leadership within the Ministry of Industry in Swaziland and failing aid support from Sweden caused the enterprise to be shut down in 1984 and the works fell into disrepair and subsequently was bought out by the current owners in 1987 to re-establish the glassworks as a Fairtrade Factory in Swaziland. Today it is one of South Africa's largest tourist destinations.

The first of the African blowers trained by the Aspling team was Sibusiso Mshlanga and it is he who heads the team at the furnace there today. James Magagula is another glass blower “who uses craftsmanship and recycled glass to tell folkloric tales in his piece depicting a herd of cattle, a symbol of wealth in southern Africa.”