FUSING ON EDGE
A Study in Kiln Forming Forming Glass with Relief Imagery and Other Components
(By Kerry Transtrum)
In this two-day class students will have the opportunity to explore kiln-forming glass in a new and interesting way. This class will teach you how to produce thick cast like glass components like those usually found in furnace cast glass by using only a kiln. It will introduce you to several types of mold making materials. By incorporating several casting and fusing techniques we will take your glass working skills to a new level. The first day of this two-day class will be spent learning how to create a refractory model. Students will study how this multi stage process works by using clay, rubber and refractory cement to create a model that will then be cast over with glass to produce an image in relief on the back of a thick piece of glass. Other components that will be incorporated into the final project will also be made this day.
The second day will begin by cleaning up the previous days work and talking about the objects produce in the first day of class. These objects will then be placed in the kiln along with other fused glass components and strips of sheet glass in the design of your choice. The entire piece will be placed in a containment form and fired in the kiln. The last part of the day will be spent on discussing the cold working, treatment and displaying the final piece. Each student will produce a 5” x 5” x 3/8” glass tile with relief image components as well as other design elements to be used in other fused glass projects outside of class. This class is very “hands on” and exciting. Students will be supplied with a class handout that will include an outline of the class and summery along with other pertinent information. Along with an eagerness to learn new glass working skills students should bring a glasscutter, safety glasses and any other glass working tools they like to use.
THE
VITRAGRAPH KILN
Creating a New Vocabulary in Fused
Glass
(Article from TECHNOTES - A technical
supplement to
the Bullseye Bulletin, Bullseye Glass, ©1995)
Fused glass is frequently characterized by a "cut-and-paste" approach to design. Various shapes of colored glass are cut and fused to a base, often a tile or a plate. While this is a valid
method of working the material, it comes more from a collage or mosaic than from a painterly tradition.
Narcissus Quagliata has worked in stained glass for over 20 years. Originally, trained as a painter, he --probably more than any other modern flat glass artist-- succeeded in imparting a fluidity and painter's sensibility to the essentially mosaic methods of leaded glass by both painstaking selection of unique glasses and a highly expressive usage if lead line.
When we invited Narcissus to take part in the Connections program of artist
residencies at the Bullseye factory he quickly enlisted the assistance of
Rudi Gritch, Bullseye's the kilnworking director and equipment builder
extraordinaire to help him in generating lines in hot glass that could
approximate the spontaneity of the pen or the brush stroke. These glass
lines and the techniques of shading and modeling with frits became the core
methodology of fusing that Narcissus came to call "light paintings" --a
revolutionary approach to working glass in the kiln that combines the
expressiveness of paint with the vibrancy of light.The key tool in
creating these lines is a small but ingenious little kiln that Rudi
designed. We have since dubbed it THE VITRAGRAPH, built and used numbers of
them, and sent replicas off to workshops.
"From the latin root for glass ("vitra--") and writing ("--graph"). |
