This week STA caught up with Small Impact Studio, a glass blowing studio in the Southern Highlands, and the project of creative Scott Chaseling and Gina Fairley.

The studio was set up during the COVID pandemic, and five years down the track in 2025, it shifted away from a production-based studio focused on sustainability, back towards our individual practices – Scott concentrating on his glass artworks that continue to take him around the world, and Gina with her practice under OLIO Jewellery.

Scott is a cross-medium sculptor, who has pushed the definitions and boundaries of glass. While his earlier work recorded a personal narrative of trans-location through reverse paintings onto glass panels, which were later rolled into cylinder vessels, today he expands those techniques working across glass painting, fusing, blowing and large scale installation.

The development in his work has been documented across a number of international magazines and exhibitions, including the Pergamon Museum in Berlin (Germany); Eisch Gallery, Frauenau (Germany, 2012, Musee Atelier du Verre, Sars-Poteries (France), and the major exhibition LACUNA with European Museum of Modern Glass, Coburg (Germany, 2010).

Most recently Scott was a finalist in the prestigous Loewe Craft Prize (2025) and the MAKE Design Award (2025). He was a recipient of the Willoughby Bequest 2020 Commissioning Program (Powerhouse Museum), and was awarded the 2017 Hindmarsh Glass Prize (Australia), the 2004 Ranamok Glass Prize; and the 2002 Bavarian State Prize Gold Medal, Germany.

Recent solo exhibitions include Sevenmarks (NSW, 2024), Sculpture by the Seas, Bondi (2022). Canberra Glassworks (2020), The Glass Furnace, Istanbul (Turkey, 2016), Southern Illinois University Gallery, Carbondale (USA, 2016) and Leo Kaplan Modern, New York, where he was represented for several years before the gallery closed.

In 2007 he was the Levehulme Research Fellow at University of Sunderland (UK), and was Director of Parkhaus Art Space, Berlin (2009-2010) and Artistic Director, Berlin Glas Germany (2011-2012). Chaseling holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Glass, Canberra School of Art, Australian National University, and has taught specialised workshops with Pilchuck Glass School Seattle (USA), Vetroricerca, Bolzano (Italy), Tokyo Glass Institute (Japan), at the Corning Museum of Glass (USA), Jam Factory Craft and Design and Canberra Glassworks (Australia), among others.

Scott’s work is represented in collections internationally, among them the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (Japan), and Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf (Germany), Palm Springs Museum California (USA); Ernsting Stiftung Germany, as well as the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane), and the Australian National Glass Collection, Wagga Wagga Art Gallery.

Gina Fairley has has straddled a 35-year career of across exhibition management, curating and arts journalism, in Australia, Asia and America, before turning to a practice as a maker. Since 2023, she has made jewellery under the name OLIO Jewellery, combining silversmithing with glass lampworking. Sustainability has been the driving force behind her early career, reworking and reforming materials that carry a history. That continues to expand to a broader vocabulary of materials.

Gina presented her debut solo exhibition at Retford Park (2024), and in 2025 was a guest judge for national award JMGA Profile at the Australian Design Centre, Sydney. Her designs are stocked with Object Shop, Australian Design Centre (NSW), Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Sydney (Qld) and The Curatorium, National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (ACT).

In 2026 she will be an artist in residence with the celebrated Bundanon program.