Bio
Jo Tricker is a master glass artist based in Tauranga, New Zealand. Her broad artistic skill base includes (but is not limited to) cast glass, kilnforming, glass slumping, and flameworking or lampworking. She’s particularly known for her incredible glass sculptures inspired by her time travelling across Africa.
Jo’s background includes equal parts science and the arts with glasswork offering a happy marriage of both. She has two apprenticeships in Medical Laboratory Technology, gained during the mid-80s, and believes a seed of interest in glasswork was apparent even back then.
I got to play with test tubes, petri dishes, glass slides and pipettes—measuring and mixing liquids and chemicals, and spending a lot of time looking down a microscope!
Jo also holds a degree in English and Linguistics and certificates in English language teaching and graphic design. She traces her passion for glass artistry to a mosaic conference in Hobart, Tasmania. There, she saw a presentation by a sculptor who made life-sized birds with kilnformed glass feathers. She was “fascinated and hooked” by the intricacy of the birds, each with a wingspan of 5 metres.
Glass encompasses my love of science and art—it is the junction where both loves meet!
Jo has completed numerous master classes in kilnforming and flameworking, learning from both local and international glass artists. Her incredible Naisiae (pronounced “nay-zee) sculpture is a life-size glass representation of a shuka (type of sarong) worn by Maasai women on the East Coast of Africa.