Author Archives: Maggie C

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About Maggie C

Stained glass artist, writer, respecter of life.

Experimenting in the 90s

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experiment g

NOTE: Stained glass photos in this post are from scans of  3×5 inch prints taken a loooong time ago by a not very apt photographer (me). I apologize for the quality (or lack thereof) and small size of the detail photos.

You all remember 1998, don’t you? You could buy a dozen eggs in the USA for 88 cents. President Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about… well, everything. Quebec sought independence from Canada. The Wedding Singer was playing at movie theaters, and Spice Girls were playing everywhere else.

Okay, I don’t remember 1998 either, but I think that was around about the time that I bought my glass kiln. It was a manual model, as opposed to a programmable model. The difference being that mine had one dial that went from “1” to “10” to denote how hot you wanted the interior of your kiln to be, and a gauge that showed how hot the interior actually was. Kind of. Ballpark. Your guess was as good as the gauge’s.

Programmable kilns require a degree in computer technology (or a savvy teenager) to operate. They can be set to heat up when you want them to, stay at that temperature for however long you want, ramp up or down to whatever temp you want next… and continue doing so for however many changes your kiln allows you to preset (which is determined by how much money you shelled out for said kiln).

Needless to say, a manual kiln required a lot of experimentation, copious note-taking and additional experimentation to get the results one wants when fusing or slumping glass. Since I’m too impatient to do all of that – and since that seemed boring as all get out – I opted to just experiment to see what the kiln would produce after my wild guesses about how and when to adjust (remember that little 1 to 10 dial I mentioned?) the temperature.

Here are some of my early experiments:

In the 90s, it was really cool to melt a bottle to flatten it, drill a small, angled hole in one end, and turn it into a stick incense holder. I just stopped at the flattened bottle stage.

experiment b

Then, I had a chipped wine glass that was headed for the garbage. I “repurposed” it, chucking it into the kiln to see what would happen. I was thrilled with this result.

experiment c

This next one was quite brilliant! Unfortunately the photo doesn’t show the results well at all (we took photos with cameras back then, not our phones; my phone cord wouldn’t have extended all the way to the kiln, anyway).

I cut a circular piece of textured glass (hence the grid pattern). Then I placed little rocks in the kiln and laid the glass on top of the rocks. The notion was that the glass would melt around the rocks and form a really cool, totally random, bumpy shape.

How was I to know that the rocks I had gathered from the beach still contained moisture inside and would explode once they were heated to umpteen degrees? That session was cut short once the rock shrapnel began pummeling the inside lining of my kiln.

experiment a

Next, I experimented with sandwiching various things between two pieces of clear glass and fusing them together. Here, I used a couple of metal clock hands. I made the Roman numeral shapes by placing the plastic pieces that came with the clock kit on the glass and sprinkling black fine frit over them. (Fine frit is colored glass that has been ground into powder.) I was smart enough to remove the plastic numbers before preparing the piece for  the kiln (rack one up for the experimenter!).

As I was moving this clock “sandwich” to the kiln, the layers slipped, thus making the shadow line in the frit that mirrors the shape of the glass corner. That “accident” just made it more interesting, so into the kiln it went! I thought this one turned out rather well. Much better than the exploding rock episode.

experiment d

I ultimately soldered my experiment “results” into this panel:

experiment e

Window with no back lighting.

experiment f

Window backlit by sunlight.

I sold my kiln when I downsized my living space. Probably just as well; who knows what I might have tried next? Will I ever buy another? I doubt it. The programming seems too daunting.

Besides, I’m still learning how to take photos with my cell phone.

E E is for Experiment

Clusters: All Together, Now

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cluster example 5
In yesterday’s post, the definition of bevels included the mention of “geometric configurations (called ‘clusters’) for incorporation into leaded glass work.”

Ah, clusters…

The fun thing about clusters is that you have ready-made pieces that you simply fit together (with copper foil or some type of came, i.e. lead), and then fill in the rest of your pattern with pieces to accomplish the desired panel shape (rectangle, square, circle…).

For example, I purchased a bevel cluster with ten bevels that – when pieced together – would look like this ornate design:

cluster example 1

By cutting glass in the shapes of “1” through “8,” as pictured below, one could turn the design into a rectangular panel with the bevel cluster pieces (“a” through “j” in the diagram) centered within the rectangle. A simple example:

cluster example 2

Something I like to do for fun is use the bevel pieces in a more unconventional way and incorporate them into panels to create entirely different patterns. In the example below I kind of “exploded” the bevel cluster and came up with this design:

cluster example 3

And here is the completed panel:

cluster example 4

I need to work on my window photography.

I titled the panel “Ascending.”

The bevels used in the “Manifest” design that appears on the header of this blog is another example of using a cluster in an unconventional way. Can you guess what the design was originally intended to be?

C  C is for Cluster.

The Bevel You Say!

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Bevel
One way to easily dress up a stained glass panel is to incorporate bevels into the design. While frequently used as borders, individual bevels can also be employed as standalone elements in the overall design of a window or panel.

A bevel, as defined at Glass Patterns Quarterly, is:

“cold glass (usually clear, thick plate) with edges that have been ground and polished to an angle other than 90 degrees. Transmitted light is refracted and a prism-like effect results. Bevels are available in a variety of sizes, shapes and geometric configurations (called ‘clusters’) for incorporation into leaded glass work.”

There was a time when I was downsizing from my three-bedroom home (with garage studio), and moving into a one-bedroom apartment (no garage). I couldn’t see any way that I could find room for a stained glass work area. So I started selling/giving away/using up many of my supplies.

I had a box of triangle-shaped clear bevels that I had purchased with no particular project in mind. I probably got them in some kind of deal, like the “spend just $100 more and get free shipping on your order” offers. Who can pass those up, right?

I decided to make a window based simply around triangle bevels. This is what I came up with:

bevel2

I’m back in a three-bedroom home (two bedrooms and one studio, actually), and glass supplies seem to be slowly accumulating again. I now have a box of ¾ inch by 4 inch rectangular bevels that I bought for no particular purpose (going-out-of-business sale… Hello!). They will no doubt start trickling into future designs.

In the meantime, I can always hang them in my windows and, just like Pollyanna, use them as prisms to create rainbows.

“Just as if anybody’d care when they were living all the time in a rainbow!”
~ Pollyanna, by Eleanor H. Porter

B  B is for Bevel.

If we were having coffee… 4/2/16

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coffee2

If we were having coffee, I would most likely be the one sitting quietly, listening intently, and secretly thanking the gods of social interaction for having someone else here willing to carry the conversation. At the inevitable lull, when the heavy mantle of converse would fall upon me, I would mention a blogging community I just discovered through The Daily Post blog.

Connecting under the hashtag #weekendcoffeeshare, the intent is to publish a post each weekend (or with whatever regularity suits you), in which you (the blogger) write about what you’d share with your reader if you were visiting over a cup of coffee, beginning your post with “If we were having coffee…”

It sounds interesting, but a bit intimate. I’ve tried to not get too personal on this blog, and I don’t know if I want to change that. Or challenge that. Or challenge me. Or bore my readers.

I guess – in a way – whatever I post is innately personal to some degree. Each post is a glimpse into what I think is notable, beautiful, humorous, interesting…

So maybe I’m not being as elusive and anonymous as I think, posting surreptitiously from the shadows of my laptop, hiding behind my dark shades and low-brimmed hat. Maybe it’s not such a huge leap after all to sit down on a lazy Saturday morning with my warm cup of caffeine, and tell you what’s on my mind.

Maybe. I might give this weekend coffee share community a shot. Most likely not every weekend. But some. And next time… I promise to leave the dark glasses and Dick Tracy fedora at home. I can tell that the barista behind the bar is getting a bit nervous.

I’ll get this one, if you’ll leave the tip.

A big thank you to Diana at Part-Time Monster for hosting the weekly link-up where we can check out what other bloggers are discussing with their #weekendcoffeeshare.

Behind the Scene(ry)

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scene

I was talking with a friend about finding good scenes to photograph, and she shared something she had learned while on her photo hikes. She learned to always look behind her.

Not that she’s paranoid; although I suppose it is a good safety tip. But her point was that, while focusing on what we thought to be the best subject matter, the best angle, the best lighting for our intended photo, we might be missing out on something even more wonderful or intriguing right behind us.

This advice helps me to be more aware when I’m out and about with my camera. Sometimes I’ve gotten great shots that way. And sometimes, like with the photo above, well… not so much. Perhaps there’s a reason the bench in the photo is pointed in the opposite direction.

The lesson for me – which extends to life well beyond my artistic endeavors:

Try not to be so intent on what you’re looking for that you don’t notice what you see.

♦♦♦♦♦

Those stacks of lumber, though… they do have a certain je ne sais quoi about them, no?

The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Landscape