Another fun day of glass fusing was had at the Rosemount MN Community Ed. program. We did a record eight firings and well over 100 pieces of jewelry were created by the class of eight participants. The one day jewelry extravaganza is becoming popular and so much fun that folks are repeating the experience by coming back for seconds.
Here are a few samples of pieces created.
This is a before and after shot just to show what happens to the glass. Glass tends to 'ball-up' or pull into itself when heated. In fact, if you heat a square long enough it will turn round. When you realize this, then you can use that as part of your overall design for a piece.
This is another before and after example. This is a special glass called miliefiori which means millions of flowers in French.The color arrangements in miliefiori are made in long fat bars of glass which might be 2 to 3 inches thick and a foot long. The thick bar of glass is heated and pulled and stretched like taffy into a very thin 1/4 inch thick rod, shrinking the design down in the process. You may get twenty small rods from the stretched out bar. The rods are then cut into small sections, and we use these little nips off of the rod in our class to make jewelry.
The image to the left are a collection of random pieces made from a glitzy type of glass called dichroic glass.
The one to the right is made from a mixture of dichroic and regular glass. A piece like this just take a few minutes to make, because I supply many kinds of glass to choose from, and in this case the glass was prefired. All the the student had to do is mount the colored glass on a black background. Of course, the black glass had to be cut by the student to fit the size of colored glass she chose.
At a Have Kiln Will Travel event the emphasis is on fun. We literally play with glass and all the glass options I provide. Some students make so many pieces and so quickly that there are always a few pieces left over that no one recognizes as theirs. We don't allow orphans so someone always steps up to claim the work of art by an unknown artist.
The image to the left is a wine stopper. There are many items made that are not jewelry such as bookmarks, push pins, belt buckles, office spring clips for paper, refrigerator magnets, and money clips. I have not been successful with getting many guys to the events so far. They must hear the work 'jewelry' and get turned off. Too bad. The class is for anyone who likes color and a chance to melt glass into useful personal items or gifts.
Maybe if I brought in a torch to melt glass the guys would sign up. Don't think that will happen though.
