Meteor Showers

My latest project from this past weekend. I tend to move from one thing to another as you have probably noticed. I feel like I need to multi-task when I work on things. Last Friday, I received a call for artists for a show in Denver and the deadline is Monday, 3/23. I'm hoping that I can have this ready for submission, but the coldworking is time consuming. So if I don't finish it in time for the deadline, I think it will fit nicely in some other shows I plan on doing. I do wish I'd receive Calls for Artists with longer lead times for submissions...oh well.

I call this Meteor Showers. This is one of those cases where, when I saw the stringers a few weeks ago, I had this vision of what they would look like streaming down from clouds....breaking through the atmosphere. This is one of the thickest pieces I've made yet (see the detail in the last picture here) and I'm finding that I enjoy the effects of frit, stringers, and thick glass results.

I thought I would show some of the progress on how this was built. I started with a circle of Bullseye's Marzipan. It is one of my favorites as I think it has such a warm, rich quality. Their Marzipan is a striker glass, which means that it 'strikes' the rich Marzipan color when it reaches full fuse temperature. I placed this in a stainless steel ring with a fiber dam.





Then I started to add some of the stringer drops that represent the meteors. Here is where I started layering shades of blue frit, with clear frit and more stringers. I used combinations from two of my stringer batches, one with a lighter steel blue and another with a dark midnight blue. I'm beginning to understand this frit addiction and once you get started, it sort of grabs your attention and begs you to try more with it!


In this next shot, I've added more layers of frit and stringers. I want that suspended effect between the elements once it is fused.








Final phase of layering. Everything is in place and ready for the mound of clear glass pieces. You can sort of see that mass of blue stringers I put at the top to represent the clouds the meteors are passing through.







A side view showing the mound of glass placed on top of the design.







Another view, taken just prior to placing it in the kiln for firing.








My first glimpse, while in the kiln, after the fusing process. Oh yes, it has some reddish/pink striker randomly mixed in there and I think that adds to the drama of the meteor strikes.









Trying to show that this is approximately 1 inch thick.

I think it is going to be a very interesting bowl when complete.

New Work - Hues Of Nature

Over the weekend, as I was waiting for the blue bowl to finish its firing schedule, I started on a new project. I wanted to do something that was more random in pattern that the blue bowl, and this is my latest design. It evolved as I was building it and I wanted to show my progression to this point in its journey.

Tonight, this is in the kiln, firing to a full fuse. I am anxious to see if I did enough to eliminate some of the glass icicles; if not, I know how to fix them.


A week or so ago, I started to play with glass color combinations and kept coming back to this trio. These are the sheets that I cut into strips to use in the construction. As I started, I realized that I had another sheet that would work well as it had a nice white/green combination. All of these are from Bulleye Glass. The final choices were a nice streakie amber, my favorite marzipan, a green streakie, and another green/white/orange streakie.



Here is my initial pile of 1/2" strips. The recent addition of the green with white is in the upper left corner of this picture.


I put my design together, by starting in the center of my 10 3/8" steel ring, which will act as a dam to maintain the 1/2" depth of this piece.

As I got going, I thought it would add interest to use the marzipan and amber pieces in a perpendicular position to the long lines created by the glass strips. I varied the number of each of the amber and marzipan strips used for each of those opposing sections.

Last night I completed the work, finishing up with a square of the marzipan and amber in the upper right corner.

I debated about using stringers as I had in the blue bowl, but in the end, I felt this one should stand on its own with a clean, simple line. I'll find out if I'm happy with the result tomorrow when the fusing is complete. The nice thing is I can always add to this if I want to mix it up more. Right now, I think I'll like the simplicity of the lines.

The randomness of the colors reminds me of Hues of Nature, which I think is what I will call this piece.