Jane Charles

In 1980 Jane went to the North Staffordshire Polytechnic to study Ceramics. She loved the material but being of an impatient nature she was getting frustrated with the length of time that the process took. Next door was the studio glass workshop. It was a hot noisy and an exciting place to be, but most importantly the process was immediate. A piece could be made one day and got out of the kiln the following day to start cold working on.

On finishing her degree, Jane went to the heart of the British glass industry, Dudley near Stourbridge in the Midlands. Here she did a traditional course on glass making which gave her the skills required to start making her own work.

By 1987 Jane felt ready to go it alone and established Jane Charles Studio in Edinburgh before raising additional capital in the 1990’s to buy cold working equipment and a move to Newcastle. Jane eventually opened her first self-sufficient glass gallery in the centre of Newcastle in 2011.