Keryn Whitney and glass inspiration

Got the sweetest email the other day, right on the heels of my, er, terms & conditions for the use of this blog. Don’t know if one had anything to do with the other, but it sure tickled me to read this:

Hi Cynthia
I just wanted to send you a quick thanks for imparting your wonderful
knowledge on the use of super glue with fusing. I had been working on a
design in my head for a while and just couldn’t work out how to translate it
into actual glass. I was able to take your tips and twist them a bit to suit
my needs. I have taken the liberty of attaching a couple of photos of the
end result. I submitted it to the “Ranamok” glass competition in Australia
and was selected. And while I don’t expect to win anything, there is
certainly no other glass quite like mine. The piece entitled “destruct ;
construct” was made using blown shards, that were lampworked, introducing a
secondary colour to them, and then kiln fused (using the super glue to
construct and hold in place before going into the kiln). While I’m not
completely happy with it -  I think the piece is a good starting point for
further development of the idea.

(some stuff deleted for brevity’s sake)

Once again thank you so much for your generous advice and please keep up the
great work with your blog – it’s one of the highlights of my day.
Cheers & regards
keryn

Cool, eh? And yup, she’s definitely a 2011 Ranamok finalist–go see who she’s competing against. Here’s what she submitted:

So how cool is that? (and yes, I did ask Keryn for permission to publish this and she said yes) Here’s a detail:

Complicated process; I can see how the superglue would help. And her idea (correction: her BRILLIANT idea) has now given me more ideas. I’m thinking about how to use superglue to solve a float glass casting problem I’m muddling through in my head. I’ll test it this weekend, and then we’ll see.

But isn’t that what artists sharing is really all about? IOW:

• You pass a technique to me, through a class, lecture, demonstration, exhibit, etc. I’m inspired all to heck.
• I play with your technique, put my own twists on it, and come up with something different. Then I blog about it, demonstrate it, write about it online somewhere.
• Somebody else sees it, adds THEIR brainview and sooner or later shows me the result…
• …and I get all inspired to heck. Again.

The sharing/brainstorming/collaborating/stealing with pride/whatever has just enabled me to do something better than I’d probably make on my own. Or as Keryn says:

I figure any “glassie” worth their salt will work out how I did it anyway – perhaps not the superglue trick (unless you’re a “fuser”) but what the hay – that’s how we all learn, when one person has an idea and they freely pass it into other people.

Anyway, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Keryn with the Ranamok. And thanks, Keryn!

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Form of flattery

Woke in the wee hours Monday night to thunder rumbles and flashes of day-bright light. PDX weathermen had predicted fair weather, so naturally glassland was having one of its rare thunderstorms.

I snuggled down into the covers and purred, listening to rain drumming on the skylight. No way was I sleeping through this, so I after awhile I pulled out Izzy the ‘Pad and started figuring out how to respond to a bunch of emails I’ve been saving. Finally decided the best way was to simply talk about them here.

The first three are pretty direct (I’m paraphrasing only slightly, mostly to avoid embarrassing anyone):

Cynthia, I really like your XXXX project and have decided to produce them for our upcoming craft fair. I think I will be able to sell a bunch, they are so pretty. However, I have only recently begun fusing glass so the instructions in your blog are too hard. Please send me a full list of materials (glass colors, molds, etc.) as well as full-sized templates for each cut piece. I do not have a glass saw so please make sure I can cut the glass with my glass cutter. I will also need your firing schedules and any additional instructions or pictures you have so I can see how the back looks. The craft fair is in three weeks, so I will need this as soon as possible. Your prompt attention is advised and my address is below.

I am a fine arts student who really much admires your glass portraits. Your old woman sculpture is exactly what I need for a project this semester, she is so fierce. I do not have enough money to make my own silicone molds so would it be possible to send me your old woman mold? I promise to return it when I am done. You could be the reason I get a A!

I have decided to start a website about glass and will be using articles from your blog. However, your photos are too small and I tried enlarging them but they don’t look good. Would you please send me bigger pictures of the following articles?

The fourth was more subtle, from someone I’ve never apparently met (also paraphrasing because it was looong):

Please come to my party!! I’m having a BBQ on Saturday and would love to have you as my guest. I am a novice fused glass artist who attended XXXX and fell in love with your work. I picked up your business card there and I think we should be friends! Please bring a small glass item to donate to help me raise funds for a worthy cause.

And the fifth, which is actually a composite of several emails:

Cynthia, you would be so proud of me! I just got a (great teaching gig) for next summer, using descriptions and photos from your blog. I am basing the whole class on (a glass project in this blog). It would really help me if you could send me your photos and studio notes as there are some parts of this technique that are not quite working for me.

Uhm… maybe I should explain a few things.

Folks, I appreciate the attention and I really enjoy hearing from people about the stuff I post on this blog. (and I’m not kidding). I wouldn’t post glassmaking stuff if it weren’t:

1. A good way for me to clarify processes for myself (and keep records)
2. A nice way to pay back everyone who has helped me
3. Let’s be honest, something of an ego boost

However–trying to be as nice as possible here–I do have some rules about how this works:

Copyright
Everything in this blog *is* copyrighted (that’s what that little footnote at the bottom of each page tells you), which means that while you can quote small excerpts from these blogposts or link to them, you CANNOT reprint, repost or publish my text, pictures, downloads or diagrams without my expressed, written permission.

I’m actually pretty good about giving that permission but you must formally ask, and be willing to provide linkbacks, credit and/or–if you’re planning to make money from this stuff–a cut or a box of raspberries or a map to a gold mine or something.

And yup, I do use online plagiarism finders (and people frequently send “did you know your blog is on —-” notes), so please…ask first and avoid a lot of trouble for both of us.

Technical support and firing schedules
I’m pretty good about answering questions in the comment section of this blog or by private email, and I try to be prompt. However, I’m also lazy, have a dayjob and am only describing what worked for me. While I’m happy to clarify where possible, I can’t customize a project for specific reader requirements.

I do occasionally post my firing schedules…with a LOT of caveats. They’re at best examples, and most likely won’t work in all kilns. If you don’t test them first, before firing some big, expensive project…be prepared for heartache.

Mostly, though, what I’m posting is less recipe book and more starting point for your own explorations. Working through the details and filling in the gaps is the best way to learn, so if you don’t get something, please try it yourself before asking.

Giving out templates, designs, molds, etc.
Never gonna happen unless someday I decide to sell this stuff, which has so far been pretty easy to resist. If I have templates for fusing projects, they were probably traced on newsprint and recycled about 15 minutes after the project became a birthday present.

My silicone mastermolds are, well, sacred, and I don’t share them.

I *am* working on a book about casting methods, but not very hard. Someday, probably when I’m 90, I’ll publish it. I’ve also got a fairly long waiting list to teach, and one of these days–when I find a venue and some time–I actually will. Fill out the contact form if you’re interested, but it’s liable to be awhile.

Donations
As I mentioned awhile back, the first (and last) time I donated my work for charitable purposes it didn’t get a very good reception. I now confine my donations to money or time (or old household stuff), just to play fair.

Advertising and disclosure
Many people have suggested I add advertising to this blog, and in a couple of rather interesting cases I was offered free products in exchange for writing favorably about them. This is pretty common nowadays, but I’m enough of a curmudgeonly old-school journalist that I don’t think much of it and I don’t do it.

Most of the time I buy my own supplies, and if I’m writing about something, I’ve most likely paid for it. In the rare cases that someone is nice enough to give me stuff–which *does* happen–I will mention that I got it for free if/when I write about it (i.e., I try to practice disclosure). More often, I solve the problem by just not writing about it to begin with.

Not being beholden to folks means I can say exactly what I think, and I wouldn’t give that up for the world.

So…hope y’all understand.

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Coldworking Glass without Machines (book)

Lemme borrow a writer’s proverb for a sec:

I hate coldworking. I love having coldworked. More particularly, I love having coldworked by hand.*

I’ve so far found nothing to match the incredible, silky finish you get with hand-coldworking a piece of glass, so I was really interested in Paul Tarlow’s new book, Coldworking Glass without Machines: A complete guide to creating better fused, lampworked & blown glass artwork without spending a small fortune on big equipment.

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BeCONica (Best of BeCON 2011)

BeCON’s over and done, my creativity is stirred, my glassjones are bubbling, and I’m bubbling over with new glassist friends. Here’s a wrap-up of my 2011 BeCON reports:

• Pregame festivities
• Day 0.5
• Day 1
• Final day

But in case the thought of reading all that stuff makes you wince, I’ll hit the highlights here.

Hottest topic: 3D printing
I’ve already mentioned this in a previous report, but most of the buzz was generated by the idea that you could ditch traditional casting/forming methods and simply “print” your glass form. People who hadn’t taken Steve Brown’s low-tech 3D printing class were trying to catch those who had, to learn how to do it. I predict a LOT more exploration of this from many, many attendees.

Best networking location: Hotel Modera’s courtyard lounge
It was outside in the (rare) sunshine, surrounded by firepits, and the artists came and went until ‘way past my bedtime. I hooked up with half of BeCON there the night before it started, and had a ball.

Best celebrity sighting: Ed Harris
He came downstairs at the riverfront McCormick & Schmick’s (twice) dressed in a light brown 1940s-style suit, cap and bow-tie, and finally headed out into the breezy summer evening.

We figured he was with movie crews shooting near Powells bookstore, or he coulda been there for the (pretty good) food. And, yes, I did TOO see him, Brenda! (which reminds me…)

Best houseguests: Brenda Griffith and Tadashi Torii of Siyeh Studios in Atlanta
We (or at least I) had a ball, they bought meals and wine, talked late into the night with me about important stuff and just generally were a delight to be around. I’m still not convinced about the twins separated at birth part, Brenda, but it sure feels right.

Best pre-opening reception dinnerjoint: Blue Hour
The Blue Hour restaurant is across the street from Bullseye Gallery, and if you hit up the happy hour it’s even affordable. The spicy chickpeas, goat cheese fonduta and hamburger sliders ranked high on the popularity scale.

Best chuckle: Pic-snapping on the factory floor
On the last night of the conference we wound through a self-guided factory tour which landed us in front of the guys pouring and rolling glass sheet. They’d raise a ladle of hot glass, and a couple dozen cameras would raise too, snapping away.

It was a rare treat–Bullseye generally doesn’t let you photograph in the factory–but I soon found I was more interested in taking pictures of the picture-takers than of the glass.

Best little art show: The tiny exhibit in the loft at the Bullseye Resource Center
The work was excellent; I would have expected to see at least some of it in the main gallery crossover show. But definitely go upstairs to see it if you get the chance.

Cleverest ploy: Dan, waving pom-poms
The conference ends with a BBQ (they run ribs and chicken through the annealing lehr and we dine and party in the factory), and the end of the BBQ is a group photo of conference attendees. Previous BeCONs have had most of the Bullseye employees herding artists–worse than cats–and getting pretty frustrated in the process.

This time, BE owner Dan Schwoerer jumped in with pom-poms waving, leading a parade of drummers and flagwavers who danced us all outside in one swell foop, then gave us an excellent drum concert to keep us there. How could you NOT assemble outside? (And with a little manipulation, I suspect I could turn the above photo into a modern-day Starry Night…)

Best-tasting: Jerry’s limoncello
You’d think, with my beloved Portland Farmers Market right next door on BeCON Saturday, I’d have selected, say, Monteillet’s fresh chevre or those delightful raspberries or the handmade cherry-nut chocolates or… but heck! I EXPECT that stuff.

What I didn’t expect was Jerry Jensen’s detour to his boat to give us all a taste of his home-made limoncello. I doubt you could remain standing very long with a whole glassful, but one sip sent me to lemonade-on-steroids heaven for about 15 minutes. Imagine using that stuff in a lemon torte…

Best suggestion for next year: A stopwatch
Heavens knows I’m inclined to run on when talking about myself (the recommended length for a blogpost is 300 words or less, and mine have introductions longer than that), but if you ask artists to talk about themselves without a gong, prepare for overruns.

Most of the time I’m pretty forgiving of that stuff (not being completely hypocritical), but when all that’s keeping me from the Portland Farmers Market is a re-meander down the last five years of someone’s artistic evolution, well…thank your lucky stars you’re not between me and the door. A five-minute warning or, better yet, a dress rehearsal, might help.

Biggest startlement (and maybe biggest quandary): Keeping abstraction in context
I saw and very much liked the crossover art which made its debut at Bullseye Gallery on the conference’s opening night, but it turned out that what I saw really had very little to do with what was there.

Some of the artists in that show also presented at the conference and, with few exceptions, my perception of their work changed radically after I heard the backstories. And I wasn’t the only one; several attendees headed back to the gallery to re-view the work after Friday and Saturday’s presentations.

Generally, I want a creative work to stand on its own, without a book of instructions. So if I see a piece of glass with a hole in it, I appreciate the void, the texture, the orientation in space…and move on. I guess I take the straight path to the glass-plus-hole.

The artist, though, goes on a long, circuitous journey of conceiving, defining, subtracting, revising and simplifying… to get to a chunk of glass with a hole. The value-add is in the journey, but I’m not sure the audience knew much about that part, so some of us didn’t see it.

How does a gallery inject context into a chunk of glass with a hole in it? Beats me; this is why I don’t own a gallery.

Biggest disappointment (aside from the faces I didn’t see there): More art, less tech
Given the subject (crossover art media), the high emphasis on conceptual artstuff wasn’t a huge surprise, but I really do look to Bullseye for technical expertise. What was there–a discussion of fabrication troubles with large-scale works, unexpected difficulties with seemingly simple fusing projects, a look at future technologies–was excellent. I simply wanted more of it.

Speaking of glasstech, slightly snarky aside: Years ago I took a class at Bullseye where I tack-fused and stacked a whole bunch of sheet glass into a deep, dimensional block. When the block came out it was absolutely delightful except for the draggy squarish bubbles trapped between layers.

Possibly the fiber paper had left a residue, I asked? Nope; it was my fault because I hadn’t cleaned my glass properly, they said. Rankled a bit, so it was kinda fun to hear BE explaining the cause of draggy squarish, non-champagne-like bubbles trapped between the layers of one artist’s work: Thinfire residue, trapped between layers. Heh-heh.

And then I lehr-b-qued with artists who had exactly the opposite view of the glasstech at BeCON: “It was really, really great this year…except for all that technical stuff.” Sigh. I guess you can’t win…

Biggest surprise: You guys read
And I mean that in the very nicest way. I was totally astonished at the number of strangers who came up to me at the conference and said, “I read your blog!” (And a couple who could actually recite some of the more, er, pungent passages from memory).

This blog is about a decade old now. It started as a way for me to access my glass notes wherever I was, and I didn’t particularly care if anyone read it. The idea that so many really do read this is kinda scary but lots of fun. Thank you!

Best thing of all: The people
I should think it obvious; despite all the (huge amount of) effort that goes into the conference program, the best thing about BeCON is, was and will probably always be the opportunity to meet, talk with and befriend fellow glassists. I think I put maybe 40 faces to the names of friends on the blog, Warmglass, Facebook and other online sports, and that was very, very cool.

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BeCON 2011, final day

“We’re just rubbish compared to nature.”
–Steve Royston Brown

The old guy in dripping-wet shorts looked me up and down, once, twice. “Honey,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “You gotta learn to get in out of the rain.”

Well, yeah, but the farmer’s market was over THERE and the nearest shelter was at least a box of raspberries, carton of fresh chevre and wood-fired bagel away. It was Saturday at BeCON, and you’d better believe that a little rain wasn’t keeping me from breakfasting superbly while the glassists talked art.

The presence of Portland Farmers Market a few yards away might be reason enough to attend BeCon, Bullseye’s biannual glass conference, but there are others. I usually gain fresh insights, and the biggest one I picked up this year was a doozy, quite possibly not one intended by our hosts:

Glass isn’t a medium, it’s a crutch. We don’t need to cross over as much as we need to throw away the crutch.

(Honk if you think that’s scary)

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BeCON 2011, Day 1

‘Cause I’m a rover who has crossed over
And if I never sing again
I’m gonna be rich as old Mr. Rockefeller
Just direct my feet to the sunny side of the street
–Frankie Laine’s version of “Sunny side of the street”

If yesterday’s BeCON was about art vs. craft, today’s was about superstars, the rovers who successfully made the trip from glass artist to artist, or who retained an open enough mind to cross into kiln forming for awhile.

Or at least it started out that way, since the opening presentation was Lino Tagliapietra, Dante Marioni and Marc Petrovic talking about the intersection of glassblowing and kilnforming with BE research dude Ted Sawyer.

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BeCON 2011, Day 0.5

You can generally say three things about the first half-day of Bullseye’s BeCON glass conference; It’s the world’s longest half-day (about 16 hours this time), it involves a lot of hugging, and the best part happens after 7pm.

Thank heavens they didn’t decide to make this a FULL day.

So let’s start with the best part: The Bullseye Gallery reception. The art was a grab-bag of technique, voice, old, new, famous, startling, predictable, unknown…and worked on just about every level.

I saw four pieces that absolutely belong in my home (well, five, but the fifth is so far out of reach it doesn’t count). I saw work that intrigued me (how the HECK did they do that?), work that bugged me and work that made me stand up and think about my own art.

I’d say that makes the show a success. If you go, pause to ooh and ahhh over the Marioni (well, of course), head back and look at Nathan’s juxtaposition of concrete and glass, but at some point head upstairs where the real action is.

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Crossoverness

Glassists are swarming like bees into Portland (AKA “glassland”). I’ve got a houseful, my friends are equally full up, and we’re all getting ready for BeCON, Bullseye’s biannual conference on glass art.

It starts Thursday afternoon with keynotes and gallery receptions, ends Saturday night with lehr-baked BBQ ribs (from pigs, not attendees). In between we’ll listen to lectures, gorge on Portland Farmer’s Market goodies, watch demos and talk about…(drumroll)…glass.

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Fusathon 2011

We came, we fused, we laughed.

That pretty much sums up this year’s Fusathon which, when you think about it, means a pretty good time was had by all. Fusathons, for those of you who don’t know, are the Oregon Glass Guild‘s annual charitable fusing parties.

One Saturday each spring, Uroboros opens its glass factory to Portland chapter members for OUR Fusathon. We eat, joke, take factory tours, buy glass (at really nice prices)…but mostly we make plates and bowls, to be sold over the fourth of July at the Portland Blues Festival, and 100 percent of the proceeds go to the Oregon Food Bank.

Uroboros kindly precuts a bunch of clear glass blanks and sets out tons of glass–90 and 96–for us to play with. We bring our tools, and any stray components we might want to use up, and for the next four hours or so we create.

They fuse the blanks flat for us in their honkin’ great kilns, and later on we’ll pick up the flat pieces, coldwork the edges a bit and slump them into plate and bowl molds in member’s own kilns. (This year, Aquila Glass has graciously volunteered to do the slumping.)

There’s a competition for the best work (a Uroboros gift certificate), members clean out their studios and donate leftover work that will also be sold at the festival. But like I said, we mostly just make glass and have fun.

It’s a little daunting, being confronted with a bunch of bare glass and instructions to “make a plate.” I must admit I’m usually more interested in seeing what everyone else is doing than in actually working on my own creations, so I tend to do something with streaky glass–a treat, since I almost never use it in my own work–and then focus on taking pics of artists at work.

It’s been interesting to see members’ work evolve at Fusathon, year after year. These are “relax and have fun,” “try something new” pieces, but after a year or two you start noticing how clearly a top artist’s voice comes through, even then.

Even more fun is watching the quality of the work grow, year to year. There was definitely a strong mosaics influence this year, and quite a bit more adventuring.

Take a look at what we put into the kiln (apologies where the photos aren’t great–or the design is covered with a coating of clear frit. If you’d seen them BEFORE the frit, you mighta been impressed):

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Show tunes

Definition of exhausted: Me.

Actually, I’m writing this the day after the Gathering of the Guilds, an artist-owned art fair that I’m told is the largest west of the Mississippi, so you’d think I’d be recovered by now. But this is the 11th year the Oregon Glass Guild participated, and only the second year that *I* shared a booth at the show so, as with last year’s show, I ran myself ragged. And found out I still have a LOT to learn.

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