Some people dream of finding the right lover. I dream of finding the right bathroom. So when, after spending months in a construction zone, I got to shower in my brand new bathroom for my birthday, well...it was a glorious day. It really was a birthday present. Nathan-the-resident-carpenter dropped everything to ensure that, on my natal day, plumbing was working [...]
Hypothesis: A glass framework stabilizes a tack-fused stringer construction, requiring fewer stringers (and likely fewer firings). Background: I'm having a fair amount of success with tack-fused stringer projects that build on a glass support structure. Since the support framework is tedious to construct, I'm wondering if it's really contributing enough to be worth doing. Test: Make a stringer vessel without [...]
Got the sweetest email the other day, right on the heels of my, er, terms & conditions for the use of this blog. Don't know if one had anything to do with the other, but it sure tickled me to read this: Hi Cynthia I just wanted to send you a quick thanks for imparting your wonderful knowledge on the use of super glue with fusing.
Glass may be one of the most untouchable of artforms--its strong relationship with light and color makes it extremely visual anyway, and its fragility and razor-sharp fractures most likely reinforce the "eyes only" notion. But what if that's not an option? Why can't artists create glass that speaks to the visually impaired? This is something ELSE I'm learning from this little informal teaching stuff I've been doing. (I gotta wonder if the whole reason you teach is to be able to learn more.)
Fun little project, which started with my urgent need for about 600 glass cabochons for a craft fair. I began cutting up dozens of failed projects, roughly shaping and firing them into cabs ranging from about a quarter-inch to 3x3 inches. Sometimes the results were spectacular, sometimes not...but my absolute favorites came from failed boxcasting experiments. I decided to make [...]
Most of us get into the art business because we love it...but it's possible to love it to death. You can get so serious and self-critical about your art that you maybe forget why you're doing it: Because it's so much fun. I realized last weekend that I was headed that way, fast. And so for the next 48 hours I stopped worrying about being a grownup, serious artist trying to find my voice and instead had fun. I made a couple of glass samplers, an old project I used to love doing. It used up a bunch of glass scrap, reintroduced me to my inner child and did some battery recharging.
Ever had one of those days where there's all kindsa work you OUGHTA be doing, but your inner child says "The heck with it. Let's play?" That was me last weekend. I finally carved out a whole glorious 48 hours to make art. Excellent time to shovel out the studio, fire a bunch of pate de verre test tiles, mix up a couple of custom billets, redefine some investment facecoats, repair the broken head of the gigantic nude on my sculpture stand so I can get her silicone finished... The heck with it. Let's PLAY!
This getting ready to move stuff is a pain but with some compensations; I inventoried my raw glass stock (came up with about 90 sheets of glass that will be coming to a garage sale soon), and my fingers started itching to cut glass...so I banged out some keystone projects. Nothing great, certainly not great art, but a nice change of pace from the intensity of casting and a good way to turn a bunch of scrap into something that holds fruit.
I know I said that I was off writing about glass projects for awhile (seeing as how I'm revamping the studio and swamped with dayjob stuff), but I just noticed that seven of the last eight posts were about restaurants. While that speaks well for my social life (I suppose), it does seem a bit lopsided. So, while I'm getting [...]
Hypothesis: A glass framework stabilizes a tack-fused stringer construction, requiring fewer stringers (and likely fewer firings). Background: I'm having a fair amount of success with tack-fused stringer projects that build on a glass support structure. Since the support framework is tedious to construct, I'm wondering if it's really contributing enough to be worth doing. Test: Make a stringer vessel without [...]
