Teaching Weaving, Dripping, Pressing, Carving, Drawing, & Texturizing

This will be a multi-part post on what has turned into a marathon glass fusing class. I have to admit to an unorthodox approach to teaching. The basic approach is to give a broad overview of the technical basics, have them work small for a few weeks, then do a scaled down version of a final project, then finally do to the finale project. This might be doable in a six week course except that I also let them choose their own projects however grand or unassuming their aspirations may be. That's where the complications set in, and also I feel, where the most important learning occurs through encouraging and tempering as the case may be.

 

It is a challenge to say the least having a group of students all going their own direction on projects which vary from just a few dollars and one firing to several hundred dollars with complex techniques and multistage firings. I have to learn as much as they do - about their skill level, their ability to attend to detail, their ability to plan, and more important decipher what their sense of  aesthetics are and how I might help them express that in glass. All of that can't be done in six weeks. After 10 weeks you might if you're lucky begin to understand the student enough to help them take their first tentative steps on their glass journey.

The image above illustrates what is called kiln carving. Impressions are made in glass by cutting designs into ceramic fiber paper which can range in thickness depending on how deep of an impression you desire. Glass is laid on top of the cut outs, and as the kiln heats the glass flows like honey into and around the cut outs. In the example you can see both an impression into the glass on the right and a relief on the surface of the glass on the left. This is accomplished by using both the 'positive' cut out shape, and also saving the 'negative' space/hole left in the ceramic paper from the cut out. The glass flows down into the negative spaces while it also flows over and around the positive cut outs.

I typically include a glass weaving project (image above) early in the course, because glass cutting skills are exercised by cutting a lot of thin strips of glass. Bending glass is learned as well as seeing how molds are made and used. I also learn each student's color preferences, and I get a sense of their dexterity level. It also helps them over their fear of glass which everyone has initially. 

In my last class I had them create their own colored glass by sifting glass power onto clear glass. The idea is to get them use to taking full control over their color choices by creating their own color gradations and mixes. It is too easy and somewhat uncreative just to buy your glass, cut it up, and fuse it. I call this the 'cut and paste' approach which quite literally a child can do. Of course, cut and paste is ubiquitous in glass fusing and can lead to some very impressive results. However, realizing that you can and should attempt to control every element of design is one of the important steps leading from craft to art. As good as this idea might have been, their 'customized' glass was much harder to cut than the off-the-shelf stuff, and we had to start over.

 

I like to think of stock glass as simply the materials to build an image. Going beyond cut and paste is a key part of my personal aesthetic, and I think a teacher is always going to bias their students one way or another. The dripping project is a very good example of how to move well beyond cut and paste. The image to the left is a stack of cut up glass. It is setting on top of a stainless steel grate. When heated it flows through the grate forming a wholly new mix of glass. Any number of other techniques could then be applied to this mix as a starting point for other projects. I simply presented the idea to the class in an unbiased manner ( it is something I aways wanted to try) along with many other project options, and two students chose to explore dripping (to my pleasure).

A related technique to dripping would be raking. When the glass is still molten you can use a metal rake to drag through the glass forming color patterns in the glass with the rake's fingers. I'm glad that they didn't press me to do that technique. Reaching into a 1600 degree kiln is.... well, not really advisable, but people often do put their mark, so to speak, in glass by raking.

To end the first installment of this series of posts is an example of an exercise in texture and line. It takes several years, if not a lifetime, to explore the elements of design (line, shape, form, texture, color, pattern, etc). Eventually, an artist settles in on a certain style, and that style can be broken down and seen by how they use the elements of design in a composition adhering to sound design principles.

In the image below the exploration of line and texture was the focus of the project. The student was inspired by a picture of a glass project that had line drawings created by tracing through sifted glass powder. Several attempts were made to capture that style.. The bold red rings were created using glass paste, the blue line scribbles were done using a Sgraffito approach which is simply tracing lines through powder with a stick. The faint red circles on the left were created by pushing a round object into powder, creating impressions in the powder.

There are also three distinct textures of glossy, mat and sandy which adds a tactile dimension. As a line and texture study this piece was a huge learning adventure. It also helped the student realize the importance of working small so that ideas can be tested quickly at reduced cost. Glass is terribly expensive, in many ways unforgiving, and requires a capacity for delayed gratification. It can been weeks, and all too often months, before what seemed a simple technique is mastered. Projects often need multiple firings and you can't see the results for 24 hours or more. The learning feedback loop is sometimes extended beyond the student's capacity to wait for a result, and understandably so.

In my glass adventures I have to admit I've been frustrated more often than gratified, mostly because I wanted glass to do something that may be better approached in another medium. My goal as a teacher is to reduce the frustration level for students while at the same time not boring them with small exercises. This is one of many balancing acts that makes a good teacher, and the more I learn the easier the journey will be for all.

One Year Anniversary : The Meanng of Life

It is not quite a year since I quit my day job and just slightly more than a year since this blog was started. Many of my friends, so they say, are envious of my leaving work, but we all are too well aware of the hazards of not being steadily employed. All in all it has been a smart move, the bank account is still dwindling, but there is steady income albeit a fraction of my IT salary. This Fall maybe a bit overwhelming with teaching engagements almost every day of the week including weekends.

My Designs For Good adventures have changed direction over time. Initially when I was still employed and the bank account was fat, I gave products and services away because that was what I wanted to do, I could afford to do so, and it was good marketing. Over time as I began to expect and need some kind of compensation in return the direction of Designs For Good began to change.

Have Kiln Will Travel was my solution for a sustainable way of using my talents to provide my income while helping nonprofit and charitable organizations raise funds. The fused glass event/class which is the basis of  HKWT has been very successful, more so than I ever thought. My greatest surprise however has been how much I enjoy teaching, and how it feels a natural thing for me to do.

My life long measure of what activities are appropriate for me has been very simple... Does the activity drain me or give me energy. Funny... I remember very early in life how I learned this guiding principle. At the end of summer kids get tired and bored in the autumn heat. Having played their hearts out over the summer the various games just don't seem exciting anymore. I recall sitting in the yard with some friends, and I began to pull out my matchbox car collection which we would regularly play with for long hours in our imaginary city of made up businesses and adventures. My friends looked at me with disapproval and said they just didn't want to play with the cars. My reply, having seen this in myself more than once was - if we just start playing then it will BECOME fun. After playing for ten minutes or so one of them looked up at me and said... hey, you were right!

Watching the ebb and flow of energy in my life has made me what I am. I react to it as it directs my actions. I believe that this sensitivity to one's rise, fall, and realignment of energy is the answer to the age old question of (and hopefully not sounding pretentious) the meaning of life. There are many spiraling deeper meanings and levels to what I just said, but on the most basic level.... if you just start playing.... it will become fun.

Of course having fun isn't the measure of all things. Life is more complex than that. However, the sensitivity to and your ability to be guided by your energy flow is an ever deepening connection between who you are and your potentiality. That is, your ability to become something richer than you are now by bending your will to the energy that you are, and can more completely embody. Hmmmm... Embody is a very appropriate word here.

HKWT has not been wildly successful in fund raising thus far. I have only started that journey however, a journey that will require me to seek out and to work with governing boards of the organizations which I want to help. What HKWT has done - to me - has changed my direction entirely.

When I quit my job I was toying with a half dozen ideas. Photography was one of them. I love picture making and could sit endlessly playing with my digital darkroom. I did nonprofit work by shooting events and providing free prints, my time, and helping with marketing. However, because I was looking for a sustainable relationship many of my ideas didn't pan out once I actually started working on them. You can give things away endlessly, or, what I should say is.... professionally you can't give things away endlessly, and in the end those you work with must value your work, and yes, compensate you for it.

But that's the rub for everyone isn't it. How do you do what you enjoy and get paid for it?

There is no magic formula of course, and the path will look different for everyone. That is why so few find, and more importantly, stay on the path. No one, save yourself, can direct you. The refinement and balance of your energy with the realities of your life is the magic, and a trick you must relearn and perform every day of your life.

I've never been a morning person, and maybe will never be, but lately I've been playing with and somewhat succeeding at getting up early. Why bother? The answer is that the quality of my alertness and sense o f well being is enhanced if I get to bed earlier and don't stay up late drinking beer and watching reruns.  It is a calculated trade off. I enjoy staying up latter and totally unwinding from the day, but that has to be compared to the quality of being in the morning when I get to be earlier. Right now, I'm siding with getting to bed early. Every event, task, and interaction presents an opportunity for realignment.

I still don't know where I'm going, and that's a good thing. For now, I have refinements to make for HKWT, and because of that path I am now becoming a very good teacher.... so they are telling me. I have hopes of being able to pay the bills here forward, and look forward to wider horizons as I mature on this new path. I will remain vigilant towards the necessity of meeting the bills and then growing back my savings.... but dare I say that is only a goal, and not a directing principle which has control of my life.

Strictly from the fun point of view, aka where my highest energy level and excitement is.... I have started a series of glass powder paintings which will be the most grand works I've done so far... at least in my mind's eye, because thus far they have not 'gone to glass' yet. The digital art studies for these can be seen at my main web site. I'm still in process of abstracting the photos. They will become richer in color and more dramatic as I play with the sense of light and color contrasts. I will then take them to full scale pastels, then finally to glass.

Maybe these will open new doors, new departures points, or, maybe they too well be a completion and resolution. It is hard to say until they too have become embodied as their energy embodies me.

Happy Trails To You!

Homage to Robert Leatherbarrow

I'm a glass artist, but I don't like glass... well, of course I love glass but from a purely personal aesthetic glass for me is like the dumb blond stereotype - very alluring but with little substance. Some of your hard core fine art critiques see it this way too. It is too easy to make something beautiful when glass is the medium. It actually takes very little skill to produce a nice trinket, bowl, or simple craft item. Another part of the problem with glass achieving a fine art status is its deep roots in the crafts and its focus on functionality over expression. Glass is just too darn utilitarian and beautiful for its own good to be taken seriously in the classical fine art sense. The innate beauty of glass can easily detract from an overall composition if not controlled in some manner.

This might sound aloof or somewhat snooty, but when you spend a lot of time doing something and spend a lot of money on it along the way, I feel you should be critical with what you are doing on your journey. It is all to easy to be misguided and off target with your work. These next two posts explore motivations and directions along the way of my creative travels.

I started my glass journey over fifteen years ago doing stained glass, but very quickly became disinterested in the cut and paste and puzzle piecing process of leading together the interlocking positive and negative shapes.When I started fusing the cut and paste mentality was used more often than not by most practitioners and still is today. So the journey for me was to explore what else could be done beyond cut and paste. Don't get me wrong, cut and paste processes are an endless journey in their own right if that's your path. Just take the work of Klaus Moje for example who some call the grandfather of kiln forming.

I was looking for a more organic or naturalistic look, something along the lines of polished stone agates. My attempts where all failures in early years, and realized that achieving anything close to my goals via kilnforming was going to be a very difficult journey. In the end I achieved the most success through torchwrork and casting, and very limited success in the kiln. Back in the early days of the Warm Glass forum I found discussion of the work of Mr.Leatherbarrow intriguing and spent many hours trying to figure out how he accomplished his free flowing fractured looked, but never did figure it out (see image above). It was a very guarded secret back then. He now teaches the effect, and I believe his students are part of a secret society of Leatherbarrowers. Just kidding of course, but the technique still is a bit of a secret I believe.

Some of the naturalistic effects I did achieve via kilnforming centered around the use of copper, mica, and the use of iridescent glass (images left and right).

Time marches on and paths change. I'm now preparing to start a new series of glass powder painting and have put aside my attempts to duplicate the wondrous detail found is polished stone. Quite by accident however, and partly because of a studio partner's influence, I came across a method to duplicate Mr Leatherbarrow's fracture effect (see below). Far too late for my Circular Obsession sculpture series, but satisfying nonetheless since I don't like failing in the brain teasing exercise of backward engineering what others have accomplished.

 I will be teaching my approach to the technique in future classes. It is amazingly simple. I found that I could obtain fine grain control over the size of the cracks and the overall amount of fracturing. The fractured area can change in color and in thickness,enabling endless design opportunities. Since it is so easy to do I will have no problem teaching the effect, and then the rest of the class will be exploring different ways to employ it and the many other off shots of powder and wafer techniques.


My glass art journey has been mostly about how to create a balance or contrapuntal composition between the beauty of glass and the overall form within which it is was presented. For my Circular Obsessions sculpture series the overall form had to have interesting textural elements, a sense of visual and physical weight, and interesting surface detailing in order to achieve an integral whole with the all too showy glass components of the design.

Having completed many years of kilnforming explorations I'm finding the use of powders the most promising and the least cut and paste like glass process. I now have control over color, gradation, texture, and a free-form physicality of actually applying painterly strokes with a brush at times. I'm finding that it can be a very painterly-like process if you don't mind wearing a dust mask. Allowing the arm to sway, the hand to arc and the fingers to control the flow of powders is essential in experiencing a sense of color in motion as you build the image layer by layer. I hope to achieve something of a fine art quality in my glass powder painting series, and I believe that might be possible, in part, because the paintings will not look like glass.

My series of glass powder paintings will be done on large glass slabs with naturalistic stone-like edging. The boarding edges will be clear glass, and the painting will gradually build in opacity towards the center of the slab. As in the sculpture series I am back to balancing the overall presenting form (the glass slab in this case) with the glass within it (the powder painting). This time however the powder painting is totally unrecognizable as glass. In a very odd way my tendency to control the showiness of glass has resulted in camouflaging its innate glassiness altogether while at the same time, I feel, liberating the artist to use the medium without the typical constraints that glass imposes as a medium

The cut and paste heritage of glass is totally gone, and a satisfying victory on my journey; the multitude of complications of hot working glass are eliminated; and most importantly I can mix any color to any desired hue and gradation without concern of chemical interactions between the colors (when heated), resulting in turning my blended colors to brown.

This Spring I will be taking a journey down the Mississippi to the bluff country of southeast Minnesota. Very early in the spring just as the leaves are budding each tree has a subtly different favor of green forming a blanket of soft pastel tints of spring green. This with the azure of water and sky will form the basis of my next series..

Weaves, Tiles, and Painting

 

There are all kinds of glass working, and many types I thought I would never do. However, now that I'm making a living at it I'm finding  reasons to do things that I would have never pursued before. Glass weaving isn't something I would choose to do for myself. It is a technical trick and one of those gee-wiz techniques that makes you ask 'how was that done'.  It impresses people and can be fun to do, but unless I get the inspiration to push it in new directions I'll just be teaching the technique to students.

Glass tiles on the other hand I'm doing as part of my attempt to break into the commercial area of art glass. I hope to work with a couple of local interior designers as part of their design team where I produce custom glass as kitchen accents and other home decor uses. Any color combination is possible and on top of that I have the whole arsenal of design techniques that go far beyond the commercial looking tiles here.You can see a whole set of more artsy tiles on my main web site
 

The glass powder painting below is a finished product. I showed a study for it in a prior post. I intend to pursue large scale powder painting in the future at the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center. I will also be teaching the technique there.

The glass powder painting below took three firings and was my first attempt at layering the powder on over one inch thick to achieve the mountainous look. Brushes, sifters, and mostly my fingers are used to create the design. I call it painting, but it really is more like creating sand art images where by you manipulate the powders in powder form. One of the main challenges to keep in mind as you put the powders on is what the they will look like after being fired. Their prefired color is usually a lot lighter than after firing. It can be tricky, and you seldom get it right in the first firing. Because the base glass is 1/4 inch thick and is 20x29 inches the glass had to fire for nearly a day. In the mean time you hold your breath until you can peak into the kiln to see what the finished piece will look like.

This is a fairly indirect way to produce art, unlike painting where you just put the paint on and what you see is what you get. One reason I like it though (beside the fact that I'm a glass artist) is that it is a seldom used medium. It's exciting to be working in a way that is fairly unique. It is somewhat related to enameling in that you start with a powder, but that's about the only relation. The thickness, the powdery texture, the high relief, and the scale of the work are a few of the characteristics that make it a relatively new way of working in glass.

I'm very excited to be forging this new direction and have only begun the journey.

Little is new however in glass working since periods of exploration have come and gone dating back to ancient Egypt. On the technical side what is intriguing to me about this approach is that I'm only using 90 COE glass powder, and not enamels, paints, stains or any other media but pure glass powder. This restriction is an arbitrary choice, and I intend to experiment with low-fire enamels as a finale stage in the painting process. The reason for this restriction comes from a long standing decision that I only use 90 COE glass, which is a technical category of art glass, in all of my work. You have to create boundaries in order to focus your efforts. Once the basics are understood of a technique then it makes sense to expand the horizons with new materials.

However because of this restriction for many years I was totally frustrated with glass. I wanted it to behave like paint, but the chemical makeup of glass prevents you from thinking like a painter, and glass ultimately restricts your color choices if you can't mix colors at will... unless you like a collection of very different browns.

As many glass artists know, if you mix glass powder and fire it from its powder form back into solid glass the mixed colors will not result in what you expect. For example, yellow and green do not yield a yellow-green hue. Instead the mix gives you brown. This is true for may color combinations.

The magic of glass powder painting is that you do not allow the powders to chemically interact. When firing the glass you stop before the powders liquefy to glass preventing them from chemically interacting. The trick is to fire the powder only to the point that the particles of glass tack fuse together, remaining sand-like, but do not physically meld into one another resulting in chemical interactions.

You have to keep in mind that all glass is basically made of sand AKA silica. Metal oxides are added to silica to give it color. For example, blue is derived from cobalt, red is from gold, and yellows from silver.It is the metal content of glass that interacts when you allow powders to return to their glass state. When firing the powder only to the state that the granules are attached to each other and to the base sheet you then allow the powders to be permanently fixed, but not chemically  intermixed.

You can mix powder colors in tints, shades and across hues, and you get the color you mixed and not brown.

I think that is this aspect of glass powder painting that has not been explored thoroughly and what excites me to prob deeper. It is not a new media, and not a totally new technique. Glass powder painting uses a very old media (glass) with a very deliberate desire to expand the scale of work and to move glass further into the territory of classical art forms.

I hope what I have done so far is just the tip of the mountain.

Have Kiln Will Travel

A tower of power! Well actually more like 6 midgets stack on their shoulders. These are the kilns I will be using for my teaching adventures. The orange boxes are the temperature controls on the front of each kiln and the kiln tops (lid) and bottoms are stacked to the right. They are only 6 inch square on the inside. Perfect for small projects and testing.

These are neat to play with because you can fire small project with full ramp up and back down in around two hours. The lids have a view port so you can watch the progress of your project without opening the kiln and letting all the heat out.

I've been fusing for well over ten years and I've never really watched the glass bake that closely. You usually sneak a peak, but with all the heat getting out you can't just stand there and watch.

This is a great learning device because knowing what glass does at different temperatures is critical for some designs.


The bracelet above was my first project in one of the new kilns. This was made with dichroic crackle glass. Being able to watch the firing very closely enabled me to stop the firing precisely when the full effect (crackle) was achieved. I learned how to make this item and bought the finding at J Ring Glass Studio which is my wholesale supplier. Always good talking with Joe & Susan. They have been in the glass business so long that there isn't much about the stained glass and kilnformed art forms that don't know about.

I'll have my hands full at the moment putting together project outlines for my Have Kiln Will Travel adventures and more serious classes for the Chicago Ave Fire Arts Center. Class design will be all that I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks.... but maybe I'll sneak out to fry some more dichroic in my little orange midgets.

Fall & Time For Reflection

Oh...Boy. We are starting Winter already here in frozen Minnesota. We had our first snow last night and today it was below freezing most of the day. At this rate the pumpkins won't even make it to Halloween.

I took this picture of our cat Mia and her friend last year. The biggest event for me this year was quiting my IT job and now I'm working three times as hard as I ever did... but loving it!

Jean (my wife) and I returned from our yearly visit to the same Vermilion lake cabin that we have gone to for over 10 years. This is always a time of refection for both of us, and as a couple. Since we are "trapped" together for 5 days in a cabin with not much else to do we mull over may things that we don't regularly have time for.

This year we talked a bit about my adventures and we agreed that it is too early to really know how things will turn out, and that we are both willing to let "things play out" for a while... and boy are there things that need a bit of time to play out.

Art glass commissions, project collaborations, consignment arrangements, several Designs For Good projects (and more to come), becoming a kilnformed glass teacher in a big way, expanding my marketing efforts, and then there is the whole commercial side of my art glass that I will be exploring over the next few weeks.

God knows what will come of any one of these efforts. The teaching direction has really taken on a life of its own and shows great potential. I have a friend helping me out, and continually reminds me of the things I take for granted, because I've been doing kilnformed glass for over a decade. Simple things that are second nature to me can ruin a project if not done properly.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.... even if that means providing a complete step by step project plan for those students who will need it... and as my friend is pointing out more will need it than I think.

To the right is an image of one of the first items I made as a project example. It is a belt buckle with dichroic glass. It is hard to go wrong with dichroic glass. It is soooo glitzy.

I completely stayed away from dichroic when I was doing my art glass series, so it is now fun to indulge.

Everyday starts a new challenge in the multiple paths I'm pursuing. It will indeed be interesting to see where the paths lead.

Those That Can't Do Teach?

Not sure how true the truism in the title is.

As part of my many splendid ventures to survive as an artist and designer I've decided to take on teaching as one income stream.

Have kiln will travel.... I bought six of these little buggers to the left, and I'll be teaching the basics of kilnformed glass to anyone who cares to listen.

Right now I'm working with two community education programs and I hope to expand that to a half dozen sites and multiple classes per semester. The initial startup cost is less than $3000 so I might actually make a profit in my life time.