Don’t try this at home
 

Sea creature by Nicky Burns

Glassmakers NICKY BURNS and BRODIE NAIRN have made their home in a windswept corner of Caithness. John Burns talks to them about their fascination with glass and their globe-trotting lifestyle.
 

I AM STANDING in the lounge of Brodie and Nicky’s Lybster home, perched precariously on the cliff top. Below us the North Sea nibbles away at Caithness. When I met Brodie he was impeccably dressed in a smart business suit and that confused me. Artists don’t wear suits. I have my writer’s radar turned up full but somehow I just can’t focus on him.
 

Slowly a picture begins to appear as they talk about travelling the world in pursuit of their passion for glass. “I learnt how to make this finish in Italy,” Brodie explains, holding what looks like a matt black egg. “After leaving art college in Edinburgh I spent two years at The International Glass Centre at Brierly Hill where I studied the technical side of glass making. When we graduated Nicky and I decided to contact the people we most admired as glass-makers and go and work for them.”

Glasswork by Brodie Nairn

Nicky and Brodie came to the tiny fishing village of Lybster, when Brodie was employed to manage the refurbishment of North Lands Creative Glass. The centre had been established for over five years and was set up to allow glassmakers and other artists to explore the potential of glass as a medium. North Lands now has a worldwide reputation as a centre of excellence.
 

The couple’s first meeting, at art college in Edinburgh, didn’t get off to the best of starts, “I asked Brodie for a light for my cigarette,” Nicky relates, “the next thing I knew he was beating me about the head, then he left. I didn’t know what was going on. When people started complaining about a burning smell I realised my hair had been on fire and it started to come away in chunks. Brodie and I sort of got to know each other from then on.”
 

That was ten years ago and Brodie and Nicky have been together ever since, only separated at times when their work has taken them to different places. Nicky wears her hair short now, a wise precaution with Brodie around.
 

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