A ring mottle is not some wierd kind of pigeon. It's a type of patterned colored glass used by some of the best-known stained glass artisans in history, i.e., Tiffany, LaFarge, etc. (I believe Tiffany's studio invented ring mottle, but don't quote me.) The ring mottles are gorgeous when you see them in person but I don't think they photograph [...]
Held an informal workshop in my studio a few weeks ago--enjoyed it very much and my "students" appeared to get a kick out of it as well--and Mom suggested that she would like to do some glasswork, too. She's a terrific ceramic artist; some of the pieces she's thrown for my birthday/Christmas gifts are among the favorites in my collection. Ceramic artists have a pretty ingrained understanding of the effects of heatwork, and we've often discussed the differences between ceramics and glass in that respect, so I figured she'd take to it. She did, like a duck to water.
Note to all who call a spade an individualized excavatory device: Stop it. Of course, if they really stopped, I’d be on welfare. Finding the right words has paid the mortgage for many years. Still, there are times I wish that people wouldn't assume that originality and confusing the hell out of the customer are the same thing. I mention [...]
Do you ever wish there were some kind of absolute truth machine? One where you feed the words into the hopper at one end and at the other end a bell dings and a screen pops up saying "Yup, it's true," or "Absolute, total BS. Ignore it." I sure do. It would save so much time. When I was in [...]
It’s Halloween and we all have our ghost stories to tell, right? Here’s mine. A long time ago, I managed networks and BBSes (a kind of early online community) for a research group in our local agricultural college. Our charter was to persuade farmers, agriculture teachers and the ag industry in general to use the computer to gain competitive advantage over the rest of the world.
One problem with being addicted to creating glass art is that it's not exactly a compact hobby. Coldworking equipment (grinders, laps, rociprolaps, saws, etc) take up considerable space and create a lot of mess, kilns also require some space, and you need somewhere to store extra sheet and frit glass, molds, mold-making materials and supplies, kiln furniture, tubs of abrasive [...]
Took a casting class and in the course of it one of the other students, a gifted metal and jewelry-maker named Carla Fox, started experimenting with tinted frits. When I saw the results I was hooked. Frit tinting is essentially mixing small amounts of deeply colored glass powder (normally opal, i.e., opaque, glass) with crushed clear or neutral-colored base glass. [...]
Just got out of Kirstie Rea's class, where we discussed how the medium influences the art, i.e., since glass has transparency, transparency becomes a significant part of the work. It's one of those "duh" statements that seem obvious on the face of it, but have a much deeper meaning when you think on it awhile. Nowhere, however, did we discuss [...]
Just finished taking this class from Australian glass artist Kirstie Rea, had some very interesting exercises that made me think. Wasn't really taking it for the coldworking opportunities--which were legion--but greatly enjoyed the opportunity to share space with some good glass artists.
I am most emphatically NOT a birdwatcher. I don’t even own a pair of those khaki safari shorts or a pith helmet. I can point out robins and bluejays and hummingbirds, but get beyond that and all I can say is “it has feathers. must be a bird.” So when I heard a loud clacking behind me this morning, as [...]
