Hot Fusion
Hot Fusion
As a glass artist, one ends up with piles of odd shaped cut off shapes that we call “scrap”. Our glass arrives as flat sheets and if I have a particular project in mind, I try to make the most economic cuts out of the sheet so as to keep as much large shapes available for other projects but inevitably whatever you try to do you end up with bits that are too small or to oddly shaped to use!
When I first started cutting my own glass I thought of it like cutting out shapes in paper but of course, glass has a mind of its own. It likes to split along a straight line when you don’t want it to, and in a curve when you want a straight line. It also doesn’t like being cold so in the winter months I need to warm it up in front of the heater before cutting.
Having now been working in my studio for over 12 years, as you probably can imagine, I have now got lots and lots of scrap glass. What to do with it? Well definitely not throw it away as it is very expensive. Some gets used to make glass dots. For this I need to chop it up in to very small bits and spread it out on the shelf making sure that nothing touches. This can take me several hours to cut and another hour and half to spread it out on the kiln shelf. I like using dots in my work and they can also be useful for “eyes” in my fish, sheep, penguins, parrots, blue tits and the like. They then get fired which takes 16 hours from start to finish and then need to be washed to remove the kiln shelf paper, and dried and then sorted into my various colour sorted mini boxes. That’s the very enjoyable part!
I have used “scrap” to make random Christmas ornaments too, but they are usually small and very time consuming. The clear glass that goes on the back of most of my work is now overflowing its container so I need to use it.
I’ve had great success using my “scrap” for making bowls and dishes which makes each of them very individual. They are, however, challenging to make as I try really hard to use what I have without cutting anything extra or changing the shapes already available. Glass doesn’t blend colours together like a water colour paint but layering one colour on top of another allows you to change the palate.
Here are some photos of successful “scrap” dishes… except they don’t get called “Scrap Dishes” as that doesn’t sound very elegant. As you can see, each is very unique.
There is a blue square one still in progress. It has been fired now but is awaiting its final slump into a dish shape.
