Ornaments for every occasion!

So this week was the first weekend that I was back at Portland Saturday Market, and I was surprised at how slow it was. That's neither here nor there, since honestly it gave me a chance to catch up with friends I haven't seen nearly enough in the last couple of months.

It was a great weekend, the weather was a bit cool, but I know we'll all be wishing for that in the next few months. As always I met great people from many places, and was surprised by the amazing things people do!

The weekend did have an odd bittersweet quality, since it SHOULD be our last weekend under the Burnside bridge (well, there will be some booths under the bridge, but over in Waterfront Park). Hopefully everything will run smoothly with the new site, though I know I'm more than nervous.

Also, I thought I'd share some pictures with you. As some of you may know I'm a huge origami fan, though I've never been very good at the really complex forms. I am a huge fan of making little bits, I even make little bits when I'm just bored. I love the crane form, since it represents peace, and everyone can use a little inner and outer peace!

Some lovely cranes waiting for a new home!

Lovely stars all folded and fresh.

Put them together, and you have an ornament!

Keep at it and you'll have a whole box of ornaments.

I Love how simple they are and how much fun they are to make. I'm always surprised that I sell them all year, but then I think of how much we all need a little peace and serenity, and it makes perfect sense.

Fusing Demo! (Day 5) IMAGE HEAVY!

So it's been another day of waiting for you all, but only about 3 hours in the kiln time continuum. The kiln's temperature now reads somewhere between 100 and 200 degrees, but remember, most of the heat is coming from the actual kiln shelf and the pieces at this point.


If we look in, the pieces look cool enough to reach in to grab. I cannot tell you how bad of an idea this can be.


In this picture we can see that there is still light coming off of the pieces, which means that they still are hot enough to emit it. Not a good time to go grabbing things out of the kiln. I recommend letting the kiln cools till it does not register any temperature (or possibly room temperature as most kilns have a 70 degree mark).






After pulling the pieces from the kiln there is still work to be done. Most pieces will have some rough edges, or in my case, since I use some glasses in different ways, they will need to have what I term upside down dichro ground off.




While doing this, You typically can shape the pieces and want to have the smoothest surface available. So here is a before shot of the pieces being ground,



As you can see in this photo most of the pieces have shrunk in size and changed greatly in shape. I love this part of the process, because it really is like the piece discovering itself. These Pieces are ready for a second fuse up to 1500 again, a nice slow annealing, and then will be cabochons ready for anything.

So this post concludes fusing week. I hope you have enjoyed it, maybe found it a little educational about the process that this artist goes through. I know that other fusing artists make other choices and do other techniques, but this is what I find works not only for me, but also for the long term.

I feel confident about the quality of my workmanship, and hope that it shows in my love for the medium.

Fusing Demo! (Day 4) IMAGE HEAVY!

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, this firing blog has been a bit horrible to get correct. Here we go for another day of fusing.


So as you remember, we have already take the kiln through it's initial paces and we are now waiting for it to get to temperature. Not to worry, this does not take long at all. Within 8 minutes, my particular kiln is already at 1000 degrees.



At one thousand degrees, the pieces of glass look just like they did when you put them in, there is no deformation of the edges, no softening of hard lines. Just glass.






The next milestone is 1500 degrees, now some glass experts fire directly to 1500 and stop for a while. Having an infinity switch I have no such option. So I tend to let my kiln heat up a little more. This can be a touchy time in many ways, since Dichroic coating has a tendency to burn out or scum up at higher temperatures.




So as you can see in this shot, at 1500 degress, I have a lot of round edges, and peices have come together at almost all points. At this point in the process I turn the kiln off, and close the lid for about a minute.



What a difference a minute makes, as you can see in this photo the pieces themselves are glowing now, The elements of the kiln are glowing as well, but most of the infared radiation is coming from the pieces themselves. Thy also have rounded out a lot mor ethan in the previous picture (this is how I get my pieces to look more like lapidary work than glass) At this point I vent my kiln.


This means I literally throw off the lid and let the temperature quickly cool. This is an iffy process and is only observed on a first firing. On a second firing I always anneal through the entire cooling process giving the glass time to become stronger.






As this picture illustrates, there is still a lot of infrared coming of the pieces, but that they have definitely lost a bit of their glow. This is about 1000 degrees and I will put the lid back on and wait.

Fusing Demo! (Day 3) IMAGE HEAVY!

Looking back on my blogs, I've noticed a decided lack of grammatical accuracy and a touch of spastic sentence structure. All I can say is that I am truly sorry and will try my best to get my crap in gear. I apparently am much more well spoken and may want to stick to teaching in person rather than online.


So this picture illustrates how NOT to set up your kiln space. This is just where the poor dear ends up when I am not using it. A kiln needs room! It needs to have all flammable material as far from it as possible, and it should be on a reasonably fireproof surface. I tend to fire my kiln on top of a few things, a stove, a dryer, a concrete floor (no oil spills in the garage), or on some other fire resistant surface.


For those with some major curiosity I have this picture to show what kind of kiln I fire. Nothing fancy, just a little hot box to get it going.






Next we have the insertion of the kiln shelf. I try to keep it equidistant from all sides so that the kiln walls do not touch the shelf. This is not always an easy task and sometimes a chopstick or some other long thin instrument is used.




All pieces of glass must be dry before being laid out on the kiln shelf. I cannot express how important this is. If the glass is not dry, it can lead to breaking or popping in the firing process. The glass that breaks tends to do so in a rather violent fashion and you can coat the inside of your kiln if it is fired to full fusing temperature with a little peice of glass shrapnel. Please always dry your pieces very thoroughly!


Here is a picture of all the pieces laid out in the kiln. They all need a little "breathing" room around them so that none of them get too frisky. If you leave too little space and the glass is too thick, you could end up with a big fused blob where two should have been. It is very important to properly space.



Then the lid! WOO! Almost there!













Turn the switch to high... and wait.

Fusing Demo! (Day 2) IMAGE HEAVY!

If you repeat the process from yesterday over and over, you will find that you have a little pile of peices all ready for the kiln.


Next you have to get the kiln shelf ready. I personally use kiln wash, it cleans up easier than the fiber papers out there, and is much less expensive. =^..^= Thrift is not a dirty word!


After a few coats, you cannot see through the blue to the ceramic shelf below. This along with a smooth surface is the key to having a smooth backed piece.


Ten minutes at four hundred degrees, and you have a dry shelf, ready for it's trip into the kiln.


Time to clean the glass! I could easily use some windex, but I really worry about all the chemicals, so I will just use a little bit of soap. Simple and easy.


Once washed they will dry and then hit the kiln tomorrow

Fusing Demo! (Day 1) IMAGE HEAVY!

I missed a day of updating... not really that fun. But luckily for everyone who reads this, I am going to give everyone a look into fusing this week!

The first thing to do is to gather up all tools you'll need. In this picture I have: a protractor (I use it for making straight and curved lines), two colors of sharpie marker, breaking pliers, standard pliers, a glass cutter, and underneath it all, my maxi surface (to catch all bits of glass that come from breaking).


Oh.. The MOST important piece of equipment in my studio! SAFETY GLASSES! You never want shards of glass flying towards your face, but it happens. Protect those eyes! An artist needs them for simple things like color selection, don't put them at risk for even a moment.


Next, glass selection. It's a tough choice for most of us glass artists since we all have stashes. There is nothing really else to go with this picture but, OOOOH Shiny!!!


Here is the selection for one piece. This is a great piece of clear glass with a Dichroic coating. As you can see I have already made lines on the glass with the sharpie so I know where to cut.



And the first cut is made.













Here is the "capper" glass with it's first score made it the glass. The score is made with that nifty little glass cutter from the first page. It doesn't actually "cut" through, it just makes a line in the glass. The noise can be a little unnerving, almost like a zipper on a ziploc bag, just much more loud, and sets most peoples teeth on edge.


When pressure is put on the put on each side, there is a distinct snap, and there you have two pieces from one.





Eventually when you need to make it smaller, your hands will not be small enough or strong enough to hold the piece. Luckily though, those pliers from the first picture come in really handy!



Unfortunately almost each trip to the studio yields one thing... A cut on the hand... OW!








Once the two pieces are put together you get a piece of jewelry ready to fuse! Some times if the pieces will not stay together, you have to use a bit of glasstac, an awesome glue from Bullseye glass! It's only for pre-fused glass, just for placement.

Tomorrow's blog will have another piece of this fun but pretty intense process. Hopefully seeing it through will be worth it!

Fairy Tale Beads (Day 5 of Bead Week)

All this week I have shown you pictures of beads that I have made, and today's no different. The main difference is that the beads today are beads that even though I made them, still take my breath away when I realize I did.

They are the prize stallions, the blue ribbon hen, the honor students. Did I set out to make them better? Of course, I try to make each bead better than their predecessors, but these beads evoked something that i wasn't sure I could capture yet, a process I had only read or a technique I've never heard of. Are they perfect? No, not yet, but I will keep lamp working my beads until I am so satisfied with them that it has become child's play.

Flame working glass is an amazing experience. To take cold glass rod, heat it till it melts then wind it around something is an experience! It's like the first time you got to play with modeling clay. These amazing colors that did just what you told them to do, but alas you didn't quite speak their language. Well I am learning the language, and it still comes out stilted and with a Neanderthal like quality, but I'm getting there, and these beads are the proof.

Experimental Beads (Day 3 of Bead week)

So here are some fun beads that I've made previously. These are all experimental beads, but have been a ton of fun to make.

The large gray bead was an experiment in dots. First I made a rather large gray bead, then I put a dot of orange in four spots around the bead. Then I melted the orange spots into the bead, getting it back to a smooth surface. I then added a red dot on top of the orange, melting it in as well. Wanting to see what else I could do with a dot, I put two blue dots between each of the orange and red "eyes". These I did not melt in. I love this bead and it's obnoxious color combinations. It reminds me of a gods eye from girl scout camp. =^..^=

The turquoise bead was an experiment in laying down black stringer. I made a small bead, and then just took a black stringer and laid down a thick curvy line. After melting it in, it just looked marvelous!

The red ladybug bead, was another experiment in melting dots. I was planning on doing the entire surface of the bead in black dots, but I ran out of map gas, so some of them ended up being raised on the surface. I really liked the way the black melted into the red, and was having a lot of fun before the unfortunate gas incident.

The final bead, the white bead with the red and black swirls, was just a way to play. I made a new shape, kind of square and triangles and just odd. I took very thin stringer and laid down lines of red and black, I then took the stringer and and swirled it over the surface. I am not quite sure how it ended up looking like it was swimming over the surface, but I will be sure to try it again.

Simple Glass Beads (Glass Bead Week Day 1)

Yep, I decided to do another theme week this week.

About six months ago I bought a hot head torch, the most basic bead working torch you can find. Turn on the gas light the gas and you are ready to go. It's design is simple and easy to use. These are my some of the first and most basic beads that I made using my amazing torch. The gray bead was supposed to be gray which is a miracle, since most of my grayed out beads were to be pink =^..^=

I had found an ad on Craig's List for a hot head torch and supplies for fifty dollars, being a frugal crafter, I went for it! Thank goodness I did. I feel like I rescued this torch from the gentleman I bought it from. Just a guy working in a head shop, but I worry that he was probably trying to make pipes and realized it was really hard.

I find the number of glass artists that use their art to make drug paraphernalia reprehensible. I know there is money in it, I understand that, but it just seems like it cheapens the entire trade.

Glass Hearts and Glass Globes (Origami Week Day 5)

Here we are at the last day of Origami Week. It's been fun, it always is.
Todays offering is another use of origami cranes, and the first usage of stars to be shown other than their awesome capacity for filling space!

These ornaments were an offering of my booth at Saturday Market this holiday season. I ended up making more of them than I could ever have imagined. People loved their fun ship in a bottle nature.

I ended up needing to find a way to organize all the colors of stars and spent a good day just getting things in the right drawers. I made them in all colors, and had a great time doing it.

My favorite instance of these ornaments was a woman who wanted a whole tree full of ornaments, well nine really. This was at the Saturday Market, so she needed them in less than half an hour. She wanted them all in purple, which is fine, but I had no purple cranes folded. Well this would be more than well and good, but that day was the one day that I decided to imbibe in some hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps.

Of course, the cranes needed to be folded just after the first wave of a buzz hit me. To make it even more fun, they were all for the heart-shaped ornaments, which are much smaller and need even more precision. I did manage to get all of them folded, and all of the cranes and stars into the hearts. It was nothing short of a miracle!