I’ve always had a love affair…..with glass: blown glass, fused glass, stained glass, mosaic glass, crystal…. If it’s glass and it sparkles, I’m all in. A few years ago, Don and I were traveling in western New York, and we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass in Rochester, NY. Talk about glass! It is a museum where you can explore 3,500 years of glass and glassmaking, from ancient cultures to contemporary art. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. We even did a workshop of blowing glass, Don making a hanging ornament and I made a glass flower with a curlicue stem! If you ever get the chance, check out this awesome museum. I know you’ll be duly impressed.
That being said, it brings me to today. I’m finally indulging my passion of glass and have joined not one but two glass arts clubs at the rec center in our winter home of Green Valley, AZ. And if you know me, when I start a new hobby, I join in hook, line, and sinker.
The first club is what’s called the Lapidary Club (which technically means the art of shaping stone, minerals, or gemstones into decorative items like jewelry) which also includes the fusing of COE 96 and/or Dichroic glass. Dichroic glass is created by vacuum-depositing multiple layers of metal oxides on glass to make it appear to change color based on lighting conditions and viewing angle. It is widely used in making pendants, earrings, etc. The COE 96 glass is a type of kiln-glass with a Coefficient of Expansion of 96, meaning it expands and contracts at a specific rate when heated and cooled. It too is highly popular for fusing, jewelry, and stained glass because it is stable, versatile and available in many colors.
Now I’m not making any jewelry because if it’s not diamonds, I’m not wearing it! So what to do? Well, I am in the midst of making 40 3X3 inch squares of fused glass, all different colors, all different designs on them from birds to flowers to cactus, and abstract squares. They’re fired in the kiln on what’s called dimensional fire, meaning the glass won’t all melt into each other but remain on top of each other to create dimension. When finished, sometime next winter, they will frame a mirror that I a garage sale. I’m having a ball every time I get to play with glass.
The other club I joined has 3 facets: stained glass (much like you’d see in a church window), mosaic glass (cutting small pieces of glass and fitting them together almost like a puzzle but with space between each piece to be able to grout in between; hence, the mosaic look); and again, fused glass (taking much larger pieces of glass and fusing them together to make bowls or ornaments, wind chimes, etc. You name it, you can probably make it in glass. I did two mosaics in the intro class, one of a cactus, the other of a blue bird, both on slate from Arizona.
So that’s what I’ve been doing this winter. How about you?
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