Glass techniques united

Once we were more proficient in the various glass techniques, we were encouraged to start thinking about a project where we could combine all we had learnt so far.
Because I feel it as a waste of time to just randomly make something, the proposed project needed to make sense to me.
Far from being an accomplished glass artist with potential exhibitions to work towards, I had to find a way to make this meaningful for me and assure that it wouldn’t end up in a corner gathering dust.
That’s when I decided to get my inspiration from familiar territory: my family.
I compromised to combine all the newly acquired techniques in the still traditional format of a leaded window and ultimately made 3 circular windows with distinct focus area’s.

The central window: our current life – combination of past and present

• Central panel includes all our initials and excerpts of texts of our wedding ceremony and our children birth announcements. Techniques: texture slump, acid etch, gold paint.
• First circle: very abstract reference to quirky attributes in my husband’s and mine personalities in context of our present life. Techniques: tack fuse and sandblast.
• Second circle: reference to some of our cultural background with reproductions of sepia postcards of historical towns where we grew up and abstraction of lace patterns. Stains, oxide and acid etch.
• Outer circle: a modern twist on family life. In the fashionable Zen tradition and everything Eastern : kiln casted and tack fused pieces with Eastern symbols representing family values like respect, honour, love, etc.

The window to the left: reference to my husband’s and my background

• Central panel: a fused map from the area where we come from, with reproductions of stamps, done in silver stains and oxides, to refer to important dates and places in our lives. Some relief details were etched with hydrofluoric acid.
• Outside circle: Acid etch, sandblasting and a few details with gold paint. These small sections refer respectively, in an abstract, ornamental fashion, to the music of our wedding and one of the cultural legacies of our country of origin: lace.
  
  

  

The window on the right: concentrated on our children

• Central panel : as this was a combination of trial pieces of the first term, I had a duplicate of the central panel in the middle window and decided to repeat it in another one.
• First circle: fragments of my children’s fingerprints rendered in both oxides and sandblasting.
• Outer circle : an ornamental jumble of all the letters that constitute my children’s names. Techniques: stains and oxides and acid etch.

  

Although this project still has plenty technical mistakes it was, in the true sense of the word, a labour of love and gave me the opportunity to reflect on all that is important in my life.

First introduction to warm glass

At the evening classes Amanda had tempted me with all the warm glass techniques the full times students were experimenting with and now it was my turn to start playing.

All of a sudden I was thrown into a kaleidoscope of materials and equipment and the first term we spent experimenting.

I learned :

The importance of the compatibility (or the lack thereof) of various brands of glass and how a different COE (coefficient of expansion) can ruin your work, if you don’t pay attention. We had the opportunity to work with Bullseye glass, which is specifically developed for the warm glass industry, but most of our experiments were conducted with the cheaper float (window) glass and cathedral glass.

How a glass kiln works and how different it works for glass compared to ceramics. (right a kiln traditionally used for ceramic firing, left a kiln more specifically designed for glass with top heating elements.)

What is ramping and annealing and how important it is to know how it works and how to implement it.

Different techniques like: tack fusing (clear 3d definition retained of 2 or more layers of glass), fusing (various layers of glass completely integrated (melted) into one smooth surface definition), fusing with inclusions and what is suitable for inclusions (e.g copper , foils, etc) slumping (glass will adopt the form of a mould or may drop through a drop mould), kiln casting (firing the glass to a temperature to a consistency of honey so that it can fill a plaster mould - although there wasn’t enough time for me to get serious about the casting process.

(pics left to right: tack fuse, cast, drop mould - the cast and drop mould done by fellow students)

How to work with acid and the serious precautions needed to work in a safe environment.

About oxides and stains and how it can transform a uniform coloured piece of glass in something that can have depth and illustrative imagery.

Amanda let us play for a while, but at the start of the second term we were instructed to start thinking about a project that would combine all the methods we had tested so far.