Victor Schauberger, forester and scientist, was a woodsman with an active curiosity. He spent many hours contemplating the rhythm and flow of water by watching movement of rivers and places where spring water emerges from the earth. Initially the intention behind his investigation was to create an efficient system for the water bourn exit of trees cut from the forest. His interest expanded to the health of water and into the possibilities of creating an engine fueled by water.

I have been captivated by Schauberger’s investigations of water and in particular his belief that water contained within an egg shaped wooden barrel could be restored to health, that the water could be ‘ennobled’ by the spiraling movement that naturally arose in water contained within the form. He patented an egg-shaped device to convert tap water into the equivalent of high quality spring water.

I had already been working with water for some time and reading widely on the subject when I came across A Life of Learning from Nature written by Jane Cobbald (ISBN 0-86315-569-5) detailing the work that Schauberger began in the 1920’s. Reading about his life and work inspired a new stream within my own work.

Inspired in particularly by the egg shaped devices, I commissioned five glass eggs to be blown by Liam Reeves RCA, to the approximate size of an ostrich egg with a small hole at either end.

My intention was to pass wild waters through the eggs in recognition of water as bringer of life. Nothing could have prepared me for the magic of these objects. The glass eggs are as beautiful as they are simple. They are astonishing objects even as they stand empty upon tripods or as I hold them in my hands or when I transport them roughshod in a football net over my shoulder to a river. More than this, more than this, when the eggs are filled with water, they become extraordinary, they become truly alive. They have the capacity to soak up any available light and so have a continuous glow about them. When filled, the edge of the glass merges with the water, a liquid bubble appears to be contained by the air around it and when immersed in water the egg becomes almost invisible. Of course, the orbs conduct themselves like the lens of an eye and invert what is visible and when close to my eye, everything in sight becomes magnified and what I see shifts again the right way up.

I have worked with the glass eggs in many lands. I have passed water through them time and time again, each time is like a renewal a moment of magic akin to prayer.

‘Water is life’s matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.’
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi