Presto! Change-o!

Wanna see what I’m dazzling the neighbors with? Watch:


Same tile, different wavelengths of light. Now ain’t that just a kick in the head?

Ever since I moved casting out to the new studio (i.e., the garage), it’s turning into a kind of neighborhood community center. Despite the recent revelations about garage doors and kiln lids, I love just opening the garage doors, turning on the tunes and getting stuff done. I was afraid I’d wind up policing neigborkidfingers out of nasty stuff…but so far that hasn’t been a problem. I never realized how many people walk past my house during the day (or perhaps I’ve just never been out there to see), but a bunch of them sure come up to see what I’m doing.

Right now this tile is the big attraction–it’s trial run for a sample tile set I’m putting together for a client in soda-lime and lead crystal. This particular one is made of a pleiochroic glass called Bullseye Rhubarb Pink/Green Shift. (probably better known as a “shift” glass) As a tile, it’s a probably a failure–imagine how thrilled your customer would be to switch to fluorescent bulbs and see their gorgeous coral glass tile turn lime green. However, this tile is so much fun that it’s now my favorite of the whole group.

And on the other hand, it’d be great at Halloween–the walls would turn an eerie, glowing green…maybe I could market it as “tile that changes with your mood…” Hmmm.

Anyway, glassists who use dichroic glass see a type of pleiochroism all the time: What we call “dichroic glass” actually refers to the coating on the glass; the glass itself is plain old clear or black or whatever. The coating changes color quite dramatically depending on the wavelength of the light hitting it, the viewing angle, and whether the light is reflected or transmitted. It’s quite beautiful, kind of like a very fiery opal (but you glassists already know this).

Here we’re talking about the glass doing the shifting, not some coating. In addition to Rhubarb, Bullseye makes three other pleiochroic glasses that I’m aware of: Rhubarb, Neolavender opal, Neolavender transparent and a new lighter shade of Rhubarb. Gaffer has even more, although they don’t advertise it (I had to ask): Bronzes that go green, purples that go blue, ambers that turn grass green.

I suppose my child-like delight in this stuff is, well, childish, but ain’t this fun?

———————-

*And I promise I’ll keep my promise and post a tour of the new casting studio soon; it’s not some spectacular multigazillion-dollar hotshop or anything, but it’s home and I’m enjoying it.

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