Planets and Planetoids

I've been exploring a rounded, closed form lately.  These aren't quite spheres like the marbles I've made, but spheroid which is kind of a squashed sphere shape.  These aren't solid, but blown.  Most of the ones I've done lately are between 9 and 10 inches across and slightly less tall.  They have a very small opening so aren't really useful for anything other than display objects.

After doing several of these, I began to notice some patterns evolving.  I was looking at some photos on the NASA site and the various planets looked a lot like my glass.  Or was that my glass objects looked a lot like the NASA photos?  The above reminded me of the moon Europa.  I'm working on a series now called "Planets and Planetoids" and exploring various colors and patterns.  Another one is shown below.

I haven't named this as I'm still looking at photos - but this one reminds me of some exotic undersea adventure.  I have a lot of these in various stages of completion - some will have highly polished openings similar to the Rothko series which should add even more interesting effects when looking into the pieces.

New Work - Now Including Pictures

I've been making a new form for my blown work.  This form isn't new - I can't say I invented it, but it is new for me, and I'm hoping to apply my own spin to it.  On a side note about inventions in glass, I spent last week at the Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass.  I always tour the museum while I'm there studying.  The objects from four and five thousand years ago show techniques and forms that are still considered "fresh" today.  

Anyway, these new pieces are much taller than my previous work, most are around 24" tall.  My little tabletop photography light tent won't accommodate such tall work, being limited to a little over a foot tall.  Taking pictures of clear/transparent work is also very difficult.  Thus I haven't posted any pictures as they weren't good enough to show what I envision for the work.  Corning workshops provide access to a very good photographer for a very nominal fee (basically free).  She is great.  I took two pieces for her to photograph.  Below are the results.

Now wasn't that worth the wait? 

World's Tallest - Revisited

A week or two ago I posted an entry about what I called "The World's Tallest Vase".  You can read about that part of the story here.  Well to my surprise it actually survived the annealing process.  When I went to the studio to pick it up, I was more than shocked.  It was intact, quite uniform, and actually pretty nice.  

I couldn't photograph it in my usual set up.  I have a small table top tent and lights that most of my glass work fits into quite nicely.  However the tall pieces I'm doing now will require much different approaches to photographing.  While I contemplate that process, I thought I'd capture a snapshot of the piece and post it here.

This is a little hard to see in the photo.  It's a nice steely blue color and fairly uniform the entire length of the glass.  That doesn't usually happen.  The lip is slightly darker as it is a little bigger than the long stem.  The bottom still needs grinding in order for it to stand by itself.  However, I don't think it will be standing on a table by itself any time soon.  If it gets displayed at all, it will have some sort of mechanical help to stand up.  Perhaps I should cast a hand grasping it and have that anchored into the wall.

By the way this thing stands 53" high.  That is four feet and five inches!  Now, that is certainly the tallest thing I've ever created.

The World's Tallest Vase?

I don't have pictures yet, as the piece is still in the annealer.  It certainly won't be the world's tallest, but it will be the tallest piece I've ever made.  Or is it the longest?  Either way it is big.  

So what is "IT"?

I was glassblowing yesterday, during my normal time slot.  I am making a new series of tall vases (vessels?) that have curved, swooping tops.  Not entirely ready to post pictures, nor do I have the ability to make a decent picture of them.  Anyway, the first piece I made was a very nice vase about 16" tall.  The only problem is that is was very plain and had pretty thick walls.  I was having a little bit of trouble and accidentally bumped the pipe ever so slightly.  BONK.  The piece hit the floor.  It survived and I thought I could rescue it.  Rather than just putting it into the annealer - it would have been a good piece of "Flintstone-ware", or a good blank for carving and sandblasting.  But no, I was going to be a hero and re-punty the thing and finish it according to plan.  Almost made it too.  Got very near the end and the cold spot where it was resting on the floor for a few seconds cracked.  Oh well - 45 minutes wasted.

The second piece was much nicer.  I followed the same steps, but this time things were looking up.  However, another problem occurred.  I put bases on the tallish vessels.  This is done with a "cookie foot", basically a patty of glass.  Now I've made hundreds of them and usually pretty good.  This time I wasn't.  I did some things to correct it, but it wasn't going to be one of my best pieces.  My glass blowing partner, John, said "Keep working, you never know how it will look finished, and you can cold work it later".  OK, keep pushing through the piece.  

It was very hot and humid yesterday, actually the entire last two months, and I just wanted to finish the piece.  To stretch the neck, you get it pretty hot and swing it out.  I wasn't paying attention and got it rip roaring hot.  Usually, I don't work that hot as it is easy to lose control of the piece.  I started the stretch and it was going quite well.  Going fast, too.  I kept letting it drop down.  The base of the piece is six or seven inches across and the neck tapers down to about an inch and a half.  And there is a lot of neck.  Kinda like a giraffe.  There is a a wide mouth at the very top which is probably three inches wide.

Getting it knocked off the pipe was a lot easier than I thought.  Getting it into the annealer wasn't.  The annealer is about 54" long and 24" wide, and pretty deep.  There were already some big pieces in there so there was about 48" of length to put the piece.  I put it in and it didn't fit.  I had to lean it up against the far wall.  At least I avoided placing it against the elements!  I don't think it'll slump, but who knows.

I have no idea if the thing will even stand up, or be worth finding a way to stabilize it.  But it sure was fun, and it rates a story here.  A real conversation piece.

I'm Not Dead!

I've been busy.  This past five weeks have been pretty crazy.  I realized it had been over a month since I'd posted.  In fact, it has been five weeks for both posting and glass in general.  Wanted to drop a note here to say "I'm not dead".  I'm alive and kicking.  Not much happening in glass, though.  

I am trying some new things in blown glass.  Some really tall, thin necked pieces.  I hope to take some pictures this weekend and I'll post those.  In the fusing world, I made one piece in the past month using the "strip" method.  No - get your mind out of the gutter - it doesn't have to do with taking off ones clothes.  It is the method of cutting lots of strips of glass, standing them on edge, and using them to make interesting patterns.  I used some of the murrine I made this winter.  I'll never get used to how many strips you need for a piece.  It took a lot more time (and glass) to make the blank.  I haven't slumped it yet and don't have a picture.  Again, that is on the plate for this weekend.

By the way, the title of this post, "I'm not dead", comes from one of my favorite movies - "Chilly Scenes of Winter".   Here is the link from the Internet Movie Database.  Note that they've changed the name to "Head Over Heels" which makes no sense.  The classic line comes from the mother, played by Gloria Grahame, who always responds to her son's question, "How are you?" with "I'm not dead".  I've loved that line since 1979 when the movie first came out.

Seconds

I finished a big chore of pulling out all of the glass I have and sorting, cleansing, and other spring cleaning tasks about a month ago.  You can read about it here.  This resulted in my living room having three areas of glass being displayed.  In a similar theme to the movie "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", I have - "The New, The Decent, and The Seconds".  The "New" are the Rothko's that I've been making over the past nine months or so.  See them here. The "Decent" are those that I either want to keep personally for now as I like them too much or would be stars of the show in an art fair.  Finally there are the "Seconds".  These are the pieces that I like or are good enough to sell, but aren't the best.  These would be things that I'd sell cheaply at art fairs or during a planned "yard sale" later this spring.  I like to have things available that are less expensive than normal.  Right now, they are occupying a large portion of my living room floor.  Here is a picture.  Wanna buy them?

A Forest of Rothko's

I've blogged previously about the Mark Rothko-inspired pieces I've been blowing here.  I've completed quite a few and put them all on a display shelf to try out different arrangements.

I made the display shelves as well.  I been doing woodworking for about thirty-five years and may be better at it than glass!  This display is a little over three feet tall and almost five feet wide.  

It is interesting to mix and match the various colors and shapes.  The speckled ones on the top two shelves are very different depending on how you view them.  Looking straight down into them, especially the flatter ones, give wonderful reflections.  

There is a lot of work represented here - there is at least two hours into each piece, some as much as three.  Blowing them takes about 20-30 minutes max, and then upwards of two hours of cold working (grinding & polishing).

I feel tired now.

Photosensitive Glass

Here is a picture of an interesting process involving hot glass (blown) work.  This could also apply to fused glass work although I haven't tried it.  

 

 This piece is a blown platter that is about 16" in diameter.  The intent was to blow a rondel, a round platter that doesn't really have any dips in the center and almost perfectly flat.  That is one of the ways they made window glass in the "good old days".  Anyway, this one is pretty good for me.  There is a slight depression in the middle which is about half an inch deep.  The interesting part of this is that you use a special glass color which is clear, but photosensitive.  Thus it does need to be kept in a special wrapper until you are ready to use it.  You blow the blank and then anneal/cool it.  The annealer shouldn't be opened much as the piece is light sensitive and will pick up some darkening, however it is a very large exposure time. 

The photo above shows the blank after it came out of the annealer and ready for its exposure.  I took a bunch of egyptian symbols as well as a photo of me and a colleague on horses at the Great Pyramids at Giza.  I just taped these on the glass and even used a Sharpie to write my name and date on it.  We had to work in a dark room with a safe light, just like old fashioned black and white photographic dark rooms.

This was then taken outside.  A very strong ultraviolet light, the sun being a great source is needed to expose the blank, just like a photograph.  We left it outside at high noon for 45 minutes as there was some brief clouds.  Normally 30 minutes in bright sun should be sufficient.

This is then placed in a cold annealer, brought slowly up to working temperature (around 1100 degrees), and then annealed again.  This sets the image on the blank.  You can see in the top picture the color difference.  There is an interesting color cast to the developed image and overall blank.  The original blank was a very pale blue, and this developed piece is a medium amber color.  It would take a lot of practice to figure out just how to make use of the coloring.

Overall, I was impressed with the detail you can obtain using this process.  I don't think I'll do it a lot, as it does require special glass and a means to expose it, but it sure is fun to contemplate.

Hoarding and Cleaning

I really am a sucker for crappy reality TV shows.  The latest one I've been watching is a show called "Hoarders".  It shows here in the U.S. and is all about people whose houses are literally filled to the ceiling with stuff and the floors falling in.  There is a similar show that has been on the BBC for a few years as well.  I have to laugh as it really is incredible.  But I also have seen that I tend to keep a lot of stuff, even it is well packed away in tubs.  This is even true for the blown glass pieces I've made over the years.  

I've been blowing glass for a decade now.  I've made about 1,100 pieces.  Of that number, probably 600 have been sold.  Over a hundred have been given away as gifts over the years.  I have almost 200 marbles of various sizes (2" to 3" in diameter).  There were probably a hundred items that were numbered and photographed, but were cracked or in some other way defective.  That meant somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 pieces are floating around my house, basement, garage, and pole barn either being displayed or packed away.

The hoarding had reached its breaking point and now I had to cleanse.  So I spent all day Sunday rounding up all the suspects and laying them out on my living room floor.  I really should take pictures, but I don't always think of it at the time.  There were some that were now apparent that should be destroyed.  I have pictures, but they are either really bad, defective in some way, too wonky to correct, or just plain UGLY.  I got rid of about twenty of them right away.  

Then my toughest art critic (my wife) was brought in to sort them remainder.  We donate about a dozen pieces a year to various local organizations for silent auctions and other fund raisers.  She picked ones out of the pile that fit that need.  We also agreed on the ones we would keep.  My personal collection of about fifteen evolves over the years and older ones keep getting replaced with newer or better ones.  Then I had her pick ones out that we'd try to sell.  There are forty that are in that pile.  About 50 of the "Rothko" series are in various stages of finishing/displaying/readying for sale so these got spared for now.  The final fifty-ish "good" pieces were packed away for a seconds sale or some future use.  That left about fifteen more to toss.  

Probably should have been more critical, but I did get the pieces sorted, organized, and reduced in number.  

"HAVE YOU SEEN ME?"

One of the pieces I was looking for was a blue "Sea Fan".  This is a really crappy picture, but it was already uploaded so I am going to use it here.  We can't find this piece!!  It happens to be one of our favorites and I hadn't planned on selling it.  It was here sometime before we packed up all the art and put out the Christmas decorations.  It isn't here anymore.  Can't really see myself selling it as it is the last one of three or four that I made.  Kinda weird.  I usually have a good sense of where anything is - and I just can't recall what happened here.  Just strange.

Oh well, guess I'll have to make more.

Rescuing an Old Piece of Glass

I've sold a lot of the 1100+ glass objects I've made over the course of the last ten years.  I figured it out, I've been blowing glass or working in glass in some way for a decade now.  Not sure if I'm getting any better, but I'm still positive that work is progressing.  

So I was cleaning out a tub of old glass last summer and this very early piece was there.  It didn't have the decorations, just a blown floppy bowl.  I liked it but really didn't have a use for it.  It didn't have a bottom so it just rocked back and forth if put on a table.  However it is a pretty good color - "Cranberry Pink" it is called.  So it sat there for a while as I pondered its fate.

At that time I was trying to decide if I wanted to invest in a plotter that cut stencils.  I'd then use the stencils for sandblasting.  One night while watching HGTV with my wife, I noticed people were using scrapbooking punches with fairly heavy cardstock.  That was an epiphany for me.  Would those punches work on sandblasting resist material?  I suggested a trip to the local Michael's craft store.  I had to take my wife so I wouldn't look like a complete idiot.  Usually when I go there looking for picture frames or gifts, I'm the only male in the store.  Anyway, I took a scrap piece of the resist to the store.  Luckily, the punches were not sealed in plastic so I could "try it out".  The punch worked perfectly and out popped a nice little stencil and I had a negative image of the design left in the scrap resist.  Two for the price of one!  I quickly bought four or five punches, and a circle/oval cutter.  

I punched out a few designs and now I wanted to sandblast.  What should I use?  That's when I spotted the cranberry dish sitting there looking ready for action.  I peeled off a number of designs and put them on the dish.  The outside seemed like the best place to put them.  I used tape to mask off the areas between the stencils and headed out to the pole barn to sandblast.  Five minutes later the tape was peeled away to reveal a really nice pattern.  

During my next foray into the cold shop, I lightly ground off the bottom punty crap so it'll sit nice and even on a table.  The final touch was to add the "tub and shower protectant" I posted about a while ago here.  Wow - really nice, the gel really makes it shine and seems to fill in the rough sandblasted texture and doesn't show fingerprints.


The picture sucks, but it was a five minute job to lay down a sheet of copy paper, get out the point and shoot camera, take the picture, adjust it in Photoshop, and post it here.


Wanna buy it?

Retrospective

I can't believe it's been almost five days since I left Corning for the long drive back to the Ann Arbor, Michigan area.  It was pretty uneventful - thankfully.  I found myself dozing off, especially on the long slog through New York.  No traffic and dead tired.  I had to stop several times for five minute cat-naps.  That is something I never do.  Must be getting old.

I don't have any updated pictures since I had to unpack and immediately turn around the next morning and prepare for a business trip to Houston.  I hope to update the pictures this weekend so stay tuned.

I titled this post "Retrospective" as that is what I did a lot of during the drive - at least when I was awake.  Some workshops I've attended, I come home with finished projects, others I come home with nothing.  Here I came away with a new found understanding of processes that can be used to combine warm glass work (fusing), hot glass work (pulling cane, glass blowing), and finally cold work (grinding, polishing) into one finished piece.  I can hear my inner self saying "it's not about the destination, it's about the journey".  How true in this case.  

The other thing I learned is a new way to break down glass objects that involve patterns into their component parts and combine in new and interesting ways.  I'm not sure where my work will take me - that is part of the inner retrospection that I need to do.  I like the things I've learned but now it's time to put them into action.  

That last part became clear to me.  One of the most exciting things that happened during the week at Corning didn't have anything to do with the workshop.  I actually sold three pieces to the Glass Market at the Museum which they will be offering for sale.  I took a bunch of pieces, as it was unclear what they were looking for based on the initial meeting last summer.  I was a little surprised at the pieces they chose.  Glad I had a selection.  I'm waiting to see what happens and if they want additional pieces if these sell.  It became clear that being good at something isn't enough.  You have to develop your own personal style.  The "Rothko" pieces I sold to the Glass Market are unique.  I combined a lot of techniques that I've seen or learned into a simple, yet complex piece of glass that others are not making. 

My goal is to figure out how to incorporate the newly learned processes into unique pieces that people want to own.

Day 5 is in the Books

Well, the fifth day is now in the books.  Today was a lot of work.  First, we got to see the canes we made yesterday.  Here is a pictures of the "Ants" cane that I took four lengths of, bundled, and repulled into a new cane.  The four bars were tack fused in the glory hole, and then cased in clear before pulling down.  I think the final is somewhere about 3/4" in diameter.
























The cane on the left is the stack I made yesterday. This slice isn't all that straight.  I have quite a bit of this particular cane that is much straighter.  I've bundled four sections and have it ready to pull tomorrow (the last day).  Here is a picture.  Sorry for the poor quality but I was having trouble with the close up function on the camera tonight and it was low on battery life so I wanted to get a quick shot before the battery power ran out.  I will cover this in clear and keep it a square cane, I think.

Here are the other two canes from yesterday.  I really like the "window" cane on the left, even though the picture here isn't that good.  The stacked cane on the right is very colorful - again I apologize for the photo quality.

Maybe this close up will help.

We concentrated on rollups today - I made a small vase from the layout I posted about yesterday.  I changed it slightly from the picture.  It should be out of the kiln tomorrow morning, just in time for my scheduled photo shoot.  More on that tomorrow.

Finally, I created a simple rollout which I will create into a vessel tomorrow.  More to come.

 

 

Using Everything . . .

I've been cleaning up my hard drive and trying to organize some of my pictures, especially of glass. As I've previously written, I like to keep reference pictures of every piece I make. This makes a nice way to refer to what I've done, what color combinations work well together, and a hundred various other reasons. Having a good reference photo is not the same as what I'd use to submit to a gallery, juried exhibition, or whatever. Also, having good images of a piece is the only way to sell it on eBay and other sites. I decided to sell this piece earlier in the year. I just have too much glass and nowhere to display it all, nor do I have enough storage room to keep it all. I really liked this series of bowls and thought they would sell well. Unfortunately, the last two summers have been a bust at local art fairs - as they've been cancelled, changed, or I haven't been able to attend. So the pieces that I'd normally sell quickly were piling up. But to sell it online, I'd need better pictures than the one reference shot I had.

Now I don't pretend that these are the world's best photographs of glass. And they certainly could use a touch of Photoshop. Notice all the reflections and white highlights? I fact, I think you can see a reflection of one of my front windows in the upper part of this picture! I use a small table top light tent which provides a good background and keeps out most of the unwanted glare, but some is inevitable. But it already is a much better image. I took several pictures from all angles including the bottom to show my initials, year, and piece identification number. I won't post them all here, but they do show that this piece is unique from all angles.

Here is another view. The thing I like about these is that you can turn them every once in a while and get a whole new piece, without spending any money.

Which brings up the reason for the post. These pieces are made from leftover scraps of color. I gather up a bunch of little bits that aren't good for much else, gather them all together, twist and turn and cut and distort while hot on the pipe and then blow out the vessel. The only problem is that you never know what is going to happen. Which is why I like the process so much.

I noticed that I'm beginning to get a lot of leftovers gathering at the bottom of my tool box. Perhaps it is getting close to the time to make more of these.

Leftovers

I find myself with lots of little bits of glass rod left over from a project. Glass color usually comes in the form of a glass rod, typically about a kilo of color. For a blown piece, the amount of colored glass is very small in comparison to the overall piece. The majority is just clear glass. You take a hammer and chisel or something similar to break up the glass rod into smaller chunks to be used in the blown piece. But breaking rods in this way, no matter how careful you are, results in broken pieces that aren't big enough for a single piece. And using multiple chunks of one color results in a piece that has veiling and shadows where the chunks overlap causing density differences in the color.

I don't like to throw things away. See the previous post on that topic here. So in the bottom of my glass color box I end up with a lot of odds and ends. They are still perfectly good. Glass is expensive. Throwing it away seems foolish.

So I decide to make things with these leftovers. This bowl is just one example of using the leftovers.

When I sold it, I had named it "Great Red Spot" because of the red swirling colors that reminded me of pictures of Jupiter and its surface storms.

But now, on further thought, perhaps I should have called it "Ragu" - as in "its all in there".

Cool Shadows

This photo demonstrates one of the reasons I like glass. No other material can change so much depending on the conditions you view it.

I was selling at an outdoor art fair a couple of years ago. One of the pieces I had on display is nice, but I never realized quite how nice until this happened.

It was getting late in the afternoon and the sun was getting lower in the sky. I happened to look at the table that this piece was sitting on. The thing that immediately struck me was the shadow of the piece on the tablecloth. I quickly grabbed my camera and got this one picture. Of course, ten minutes later the sun had gone behind the tree near my booth and the shadow was gone.

Most Popular Piece That Never Sold

This year has been bad in Michigan for the economy - unemployment is over 17% and people just don't have a lot of spending money these days. For me this downward spiral started last summer about twelve or even fourteen months ago. I usually do a few art fairs a year where I do some pretty strong sales. I stay away from the big one here in the area - the collection of independent fairs collectively called the Ann Arbor art fair. I blogged on this previously. However the fairs that I've had the most success have been cancelled, at least for the time being.

So I'm left with a lot of pieces that I've made and they haven't yet been sold. I've had to pack, and repack them, several times as I look for a specific piece for someone. It's good that I have pictures of everything, but my anal-compulsiveness hasn't gotten so far as to actually track which pieces are in which blue tub. I love blue tubs. I have more than fifty of them. But that's another topic for another day.

I came across this piece packed away. It has a long history. I made it several years ago, and I really liked what happened with the colors. There is an interesting reaction with the "veins" that wrap the piece. They are a gold based color, but reflect several different shades of gold, silver, and blue, depending on the light. At outdoor shows, I made sure to put this piece in a sunny spot, which usually meant it moved throughout the day. I can't even begin to count the number of people that have ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the piece. Everyone loves it. Or at least, that is what they've said. But nobody ever bought it. It wasn't expensive - in fact I had it listed for about $95. Maybe it was too little. Other pieces, that didn't get as much attention went flying off the shelves.

At this point, the piece is occupying one of the coveted prime display locations in my house where the best glass pieces get some time on display. I'll create something else that is new, and therefore "better", and this piece will get packed away for a while. Maybe the next art fair will change things and it will find a home.