New take on a broken plate

When I was first learning fused glass we made broken plates. You take a hammer and break a pieces of glass up and then arrange them on another piece of glass and fuse (bottom two images). I decided to do something different than your traditional broken plate and make some purposeful, semi-random cuts in a piece of swirled glass. I then plated them on a larger piece of glass and tack fused it. I then spread some medium frit in the empty spaces and did a little longer of a tack fuse. Next I slumped it in a gentlly sloped plate mold. I really like the flow of the swirls offset by the straight lines and texture of the frit.

Delayed Wedding Present

I finally gave in and bought weave bars so I could do an actual weaved plate, instead of a faux one. A couple friends of mine got married last April and I had not completed their present at that time. I was actually waiting for the weave bars to ship at that point. Before I knew it summer house projects took me away and I had not gotten back to this project until August of this year. So here you have it, my first weaved plate made with iridized blue, red, and blue glass.

Christmas 2012 projects

Last Christmas I made a couple small projects. The first (Top) was a faux basket weave. I cut the blue glass into a circle and then cut strips from it. I then cut a clear piece in the same sized circle. I placed every other blue strip on the clear glass then place the rest of the blue on perpendicularly to the first. From there a full fuse and then slump. It reminds me of a picnic table design. The great part of this design is that because it is a solid piece, it can hold liquids, if needed. I also spent some time creating Christmas tree ornaments from Spectrum Spirit glass. I got the idea from Spectrum's web site.I like the style of these pieces.

Catching up

I haven't been keeping up with the blog as often as I would like. I am hoping that I have the time and fortitude to do that going forward. My experiences of this past summer have led me to revelations about myself and my relationship with glass. In July, I spent a week blowing glass with a group of artists at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in a class taught by Ed Schmid and assisted by Ben Johnson. It was the hottest week of this year. The ambient temperature in the hot shop was 120 degrees, and I'm not talking about directly in front of the furnace. It was a tough week physically to get through. I know I came close to heat stroke at least once that week and had to call it a day. I learned a lot that week. My fellow artists were some of the most supportive/creative people I've had the pleasure to meet. What I discovered is that although I've had an interest in glass for the past 16 years of my life, I had not really had a passion for it. This class, the people and the physical struggle of getting through the class awoke the passion in me that must have been waiting just under the surface. Up until this point, I had made my glass items for myself, or to give away as presents or to donate for charities to auction off. I've not wanted to create an inventory of items because of the expense and fear that they may not sell. That is going to change starting now, well starting about a month ago. There are so many techniques that I want to explore and ways of manipulating glass that I want to try to gain mastery in that in order to finance all of this exploration and improvement in my technique, I am going to start making glass items to sell. I am going to pursue my fused glass, flame worked glass, blown glass, and the occasional stained glass simultaneously. Within the next 4 months or so I am going to open a web site with my glass and start selling on Etsy. I will also, once I reach a critical mass of inventory, start doing the occasional craft show. Who knows, I may try to enter some art contests. I will provide updates as I go along. In the mean time, to the left are items I made during my one week intensive class in July.

Life Changing Experience

I will write more about this later once it all congeals in my mind. Here is my recent post to FB and G+:

Last week's intensive glass class is proving to have been a crucible, figuratively and literally, for me. I see my life in more focus than I ever have before. I know my goals for myself, my family, my work and have a passion for all that is intensified beyond what I thought I was capable of feeling. It's really sad in a way that it has taken 44 years of my life to feel like I do now. I always thought this type of passion was for other people. I'm overjoyed to know that I can share in this deep passion for life. I guess it was just always under the surface waiting to rise up. #LifeChangingEvent

First attempts at flameworking

My wife and I took a 4 week class in flameworking that just recently ended. I thought I'd share my first attempts at pendants. Enjoy!

Shatter Plate - with a twist

I started out this project as a gift for a house warming party. I was hoping to and up with a smaller serving plate, but ended up with an art piece. It was going to be a simple shatter plate. You take a hammer to a piece of glass and arrange it on top of another piece of glass. You can see in the second picture that when it was laid out in the kiln to fire it did not have a hole in it. When it was fired a bubble came up in the middle. I'm still not sure exactly why that happened. Not enough glass in the area? Defect in the glass? Who knows. The bubble was so thin that it popped back and forth just like the dice roller in a game of trouble. I decided to go with it and popped out the bubble and then ground the center out. I did a second firing for a fire polish, and then finally slumped the piece. We were able to pick up a stand on the way to the house warming and I ended up getting the project done in the nick of time.