Whanganui: creative immersion
03 March 2026
Get a hands-on experience of creativity and culture in Whanganui.
Meet the maker: Katie Brown, glass artist
We talk to inspiring Whanganui-based glass artist, Katie Brown.
Glass blowing is hot, hard work. Molten glass is pulled with a pole from a bright-hot furnace launching a fast-paced effort of blowing, turning, gathering – constantly moving and twisting the syrupy hot liquid. It’s a dance requiring strength, skills, experience and team effort.
Whanganui glass artist Katie Brown knows the dance steps well, having discovered glass blowing in the 1990s. Following a creative childhood, Katie enrolled in a three-year glass blowing production and design course at Whanganui Polytechnic.
“It was a really good course. It was hands-on, which is what you need if you want to do glass blowing. You need to do repetitive work to really learn the skill; it’s a hard medium to learn.”
From there, she travelled to the United States to work with a renowned glass artist in Massachusetts. “That was an amazing opportunity, to go and live on the other side of the world and to work with glassmakers. I learned a lot.”
Katie Brown at work in the pit in Whanganui. Photo by Alanah Brown.
After a stint in the UK, Katie headed back to Whanganui, and in 2005 she and two other artists set up Chronicle Glass. That was sold a little over a decade later to the local council and became New Zealand Glass Works, a facility that artists – including Katie – share. She hires it by the day for glass blowing work.
Here, in what is known as the pit, a furnace to hold molten glass runs permanently at 1,100 degrees and a glowing heating chamber, called the glory hole, reheats glass during the blowing process.
“Glass cools very quickly,” Katie explains. “It’s a series of steps. You can only move the glass when it’s really hot, so you have to keep going back to the glory hole.”
Katie collects molten glass to turn into art. Photo by Alanah Brown.
Right from the start of her career, Katie has made things that sell well, including jewel-coloured paperweights, vases and bottles. That’s enabled her to keep going while developing more ambitious, more artistic designs.
“Now, I have a lighting range and I have a more sculptural range for people who want something different for their walls. I still make love-heart paperweights, though. I cover a lot of markets.”
Lighting is her favourite. “It’s challenging, as I’m often trying to make three identical items on a large scale, but I really enjoy it. It’s very satisfying. I make the glass, then get the fittings right and the electricity goes on and it all comes alive!”
Katie Brown with one of her glass sculptures. Photo by Alanah Brown.
Katie tends to use clear glass for light shades, particularly enjoying a process that involves gathering canes of pale glass and rolling them into the molten blown glass, so they meld into the surface. Manipulating the lines created by the canes creates a lace effect.
“The cane work creates the movement within the shape. Cane work is a Venetian process but not many people use it in lighting. They’re beautiful, very elegant at nighttime.”
It takes about an hour to make one: “That’s with two of us, which isn’t too bad but it’s a full-on hour!”
Because they’re hand-made, the lights have a slightly wonky quality. And while she’s often asked to make three the same, they can only ever be approximate.
“To have the same sizes, you have to gather up the same amount of glass each time but it’s like putting a knife into golden syrup, you don’t know how much you’ve got. It really is like working with liquid honey.”
Katie at her Brown and Co gallery in Whanganui. Photo by Alanah Brown.
Not only does she take chunks of coloured glass, melt them and turn them into unique works of art, she also runs a business. Katie Brown and Co, launched five years ago, is a gallery selling glass – by her and by others – plus ceramics, paintings, sculptures and jewellery made by local artists who contribute to the creative vibe of Whanganui.
“There’s a great art scene here,” she confirms. “There’s something like 24 galleries in Whanganui.”
This story is from the Autumn 2026 issue of AA Directions magazine.
