Kindling

Ruth Allen X Adam Markowitz

Exhibited in 100 Lights

Hosted Melbourne Design Week Event, 2025

Image credit Fred Kroh

Kindling is part of an ongoing collaboration between

Ruth Allen and Adam Markowitz

Exhibited in 100 Lights by Friends and Associates at the MeatMarket.

Kindling is a singular wall light forged through fire, tension, and precision — where blown glass and finely crafted timber collide in a scorched and intimate dialogue. The molten glass is warped and stretched by its encounter with wood; the timber, in turn, is blackened, blistered, and forever altered. The two elements are locked together in a dry-fit bridle joint — no adhesives, only balance, skill, and risk. The warped glass bubble hangs in quiet suspense, its fragility counterweighted by the exactitude of mortise and tenon joinery. Light from a concealed LED refracts through the distorted surface, casting shifting patterns of shadow and flame across the wall.

This object is the result of a raw, process-led collaboration between glass artist Ruth Allen and architect/woodworker Adam Markowitz. Demonstrated live at Melbourne Design Week 2025, Kindling reimagines the ancient role of wood in glassmaking — not as tool, but as co-conspirator. The glass was formed and deformed by its interaction with the timber, while the timber was ignited and burnt as it was subjected to the glass — creating a unified luminaire in which each medium was defined by the other.


‘Kindling’ Event at The Glass Epicentre

In Kindling, a live event for Melbourne Design Week 2025, the collision of molten glass and crafted timber was not metaphor — it was literal. Fifty guests gathered inside The Glass Epicentre’s roaring hotshop to witness Ruth Allen and Adam Markowitz perform their experimental process at the edge of control. What unfolded was a charged exchange between two ancient materials and two master makers, pushing their crafts into volatile, transformative territory.

Presented as part of Design Week’s official program, the demonstration began with a breakdown of the conceptual and technical framework behind Kindling, followed by several live experiments. Ruth began by blowing a glass bubble; and at the critical moment, Adam would insert the timber. On contact with the 1100°C glass, the wood ignites. Each material shapes and scars the other. The object captures that collision — a frozen moment of combustion, and a testament to the radical possibilities of skilled, cross-disciplinary handwork.

The event also included a conversation unpacking the risks, challenges, and shared language discovered through process. Prototypes and artefacts showed the evolution of their work, while themes of sustainability, craft lineage, and collaboration framed the practice within broader design discourse. Kindling offered rare, close-range insight into combustion as creation — and handcraft as cultural force.


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and Poof...they were all gone.