Glass resources update
January 7, 2012
Hey, folks;
I’m in the process of updating my enormous casting resources page and I need your help.
I’m adding new categories such as adhesives & sealants, coldworking and casting instruction (and I mean REAL, intensive glass casting classes). I’m also checking old listings and making sure they work.
Luann Udell
March 14, 2009
Luann Udell isn’t a glassist, but she sure writes a nice, info-packed blog for artists. It’s worth a visit. She also makes neat art.
Color reactions of glass (list)
February 9, 2008
Another quick one, mostly so I can always find it.
I’ve talked frequently about “reactivity” of glass, i.e., the tendency of one glass to change color and other properties when combined with, or in close proximity to, another glass. In compatible glasses the concern is more about color change than anything else…and the color changes can be something of a shock.
Early on, I put a lot of work into a glasspic I called “snow maiden,” mostly made out of BE French Vanilla. I sifted BE Salmon Pink powder all over her face to add a healthy blush. On firing she became “Tahitian maiden,” and taught me the lovely dark reaction you get when you combine FV and Salmon Pink.
Since then I’ve done a LOT of color tests. (in the picture above you see a lovely reaction between Medium Amber and Salmon Pink)
I mostly try sifting frits over one another, as above, or combining them in deeper cubes to test colors for casting. I tend to slip a couple into firings when there’s space in the kiln (and I have time–measuring out minute quantities of frit gets to be a pain), so I wind up with lots of tiles and cubes that are invaluable references for my work. At some point I’m going to catalog them, get them up on my walls and do something about making a visual tool on my website…but that’s in the future.
There are several resources available to help you figure out color reactions before they happen. Probably the most definitive is Bullseye’s own, which they revamped in the last few months. They’ve built charts broadly defining the characteristics of their glasses, one for transparents, one for opals. There’s good firing data in there, as well as notes on chemical composition and potential for reaction.
Lauri Levanto, a Finnish glass artist, has charted the Bullseye info into cross-referenced tables in both English and Suomish. If you’re willing to be a bit adventurous, check here first and you’ll see a lot more links to very useful things like a glass glossery and such. Not all of it is English, but I can usually puzzle out what isn’t in because it’s very logically (for me, anyway) organized.
Torchworkers/beadmakers uses these reactions quite a bit, and most of the online discussions I’ve found about this involve beadmaking. I’m still looking for additional information on reactivities, with Bullseye or just about any other glass used in art. If someone has additional links, lemme know and I’ll post them here.
Thanks!
–cynthia
CMOG does a very nice thing: glass videos
July 27, 2007
Ask and ye shall receive, apparently.
The Corning Museum of Glass, one of my favorite places on earth, just released 40 video clips about various glass studio techniques, and most of them are well worth watching. It’s a vast improvement over their first rich media forays, i.e., semi-audible podcasts with a few still images.
I moaned a bit about that in a previous blogpost, and bedogged if they didn’t fix it by releasing these clips. Since I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next installment of their masterclass series (which so far hasn’t materialized), this is a great consolation prize. Much happiness and joy.
There are segments on glassblowing, coldworking, flameworking, kilnforming, casting, etc. Most are about some aspect of glassblowing (not surprising given the fact that it’s CMOG). Audio is clear, (the voices of David Whitehouse and Bill Gudenrath in the segments I’ve seen so far) photography is sharp and well-lighted and the information is useful. The segments are pretty basic, but give you a good look at what is meant by, say, “battuto.”
You can download the small versions directly from Corning’s web site, or purchase the full-sized versions directly from Corning. I’m doing the latter and adding it to my library.
Happy sigh.
They haven’t entirely abandoned the audio-only podcast format, which is still a pity since this is such a visual medium. Tina Oldknow, museum curator and annual glass review maven, interviews the definitely UN-neutral Marvin Lipofsky in the latest.
Here’s another cool idea, although unless you’re planning to visit the museum you’ll wind up mostly frustrated: Corning has uploaded its audiobook tour files–the tourguide-in-a-box narratives that many museums now use to tell the audience what it’s looking at. The idea is that you can download it to your MP3 player and avoid a headset rental charge when you visit.
Just FYI, CMOG’s done more than this to beef up its website. I’ve been using its art search tool for a little while now, but I think they only formally released it this week. It’s great for finding and learning about historic glass pieces. Give it a whirl…
Gosh. Haven’t been to CMOG in a couple of years at least. Obviously, it’s time for another visit. Cheers….
Corning Museum discusses Lino Tagliapietra and Toots Zynsky
May 18, 2007
Tina Oldknow interviewed Lino Tagliapietra for the Corning Museum’s podcast series, “Meet the artist.” They really, really, really need to work on their production values, but if you can get over the lousy sound quality it’s an interesting show.
She says Lino is the “most significant Italian influence” in glass art. Interesting characterization. Don’t know that I’d argue, but it seems too limiting to restrict him to “Italian influence.”
I love the idea of a glass podcast, but glass is such a visual medium that I really think vcasting is more appropriate. In particular, Tagliapietra is not a native English speaker and he’s much easier to understand when you can also see him speak. 47 minutes of deciphering ItaloEnglish with compromised sound quality will tax all but his biggest fans. Perhaps they should take a cue from Bullseye, which released a video on Steve Klein that’s certainly more effective in getting the point across.
This is the second in Corning’s “Meet the Artist” series and the only one I can find on iTunes. If you visit the Corning Museum website and do a search, you’ll find the first in the series, Toots Zynsky. If Tagliapietra is my favorite blown glass artist, Zynsky’s my favorite kilnformed glass artist, so this is a treat worth the 25MB MP3 download.
Again, though, this would have been better as a vcast. Corning thoughtfully provides a page of Zynsky images and a page of Tagliapietra images to “view along,” but it’s not the same.
Next up: Marvin Lipofsky, whose strong beliefs and opinions ought to make this an interesting podcast.
Corning’s also promising to release a podcast series on its glass collection this month. I sincerely hope they’ve gotten the vcast stuff down by then.
BTW, Bullseye is beginning to get the whole video thing nicely. They did an early video, Bullseye Connections, that I greatly enjoyed but am told was more a labor of love than profit, so I was sorry when they didn’t release “Connections II.”
Hopefully, with the Klein video, a capture of an Oregon Public Broadcasting piece on wonderful artist Catharine Newell, and now a really intelligently done clip with Tom Jacobs demonstrating the glass sketch, they’ll make releasing new clips a regular thing. Not sure who over at Bullseye is doing it, but I’d love to see Corning (and the Glass Museum up in Tacoma) follow his/her example.