dog sleeps in rocker I admire him with soft eyes lest my gaze wakes him
Softly
2
Author Archives: Maggie C
A Host of Hostas or a Flock of Ferns?
You know how it is when you have a thread loose on your shirt sleeve that you can see out of the corner of your eye every time you move your arm?
It’s on the sleeve of your dominant hand, so whenever you have scissors handy you try to cut it off, but with your weaker hand you can’t manage the scissors well enough to get the thread between the blades. And if you do get that far, you’re still afraid to make the cut because from your peripheral vision you can’t tell if you’d be cutting the cloth of the sleeve as well as the errant thread.
You do know how that is, right? And then when there are no scissors around, and you start noticing the thread poking up from your sleeve again, you just want to pinch it tight between your thumb and index finger and yank it out to be rid of it once and for all.
But you know you can’t. You’ve been told that if you pull on a loose thread, the entire article of clothing will come undone and fall at your feet in a ragged, unraveled heap.
What I’m getting at here is:
What is the meaning of art?
Not following? See, the definition of art is like that wily, unruly thread that you just can’t quite get a hold on. And so you keep coming at it from different angles, thinking the meaning of art – heck, the whole meaning of life – is right there, just visible out of the corner of your eye.
Take hostas for example. You know, those green leafy plants that don’t look like ferns. Okay, so you’ve got your hostas over here, and over there somewhere you’ve got your ferns. And the question is:
When is a fern a hosta and when is a fern a fern, and who gets to decide?
It doesn’t get any clearer than that. But you’re still scratching your head and giving me that look, so I’ll continue. No, no, I insist.
I follow the Facebook page for Dale Chihuly, world-renowned glass sculptor. Yes, he’s the magnificent artist after whom I named my dog. It’s an honor really; maybe not so much for Dale, but certainly for my dog.
Dale Chihuly’s work.
Recently, on Dale Chihuly’s Facebook page there was a photo of a glass art installation in Oseyrarsandur, Iceland, from the year 2000. The artwork is titled “Green Ferns.” I haven’t had the chance to hop over to Oseyrarsandur to snap a photo for you, but here’s the link to the FB photo:
Okay, so the artist is sharing a photo of the artist’s work which the artist has titled “Green Ferns.” And below the FB post someone comments, “I’d say those are hostas, not ferns…. But thanks!”
So here’s the question: are they ferns, because that’s what the artist says they are? Are they hostas, because that’s what the commenter says they are? Are they both, depending on who’s looking? This is starting to sound like that twine theory stuff. String, I meant string!
Does it matter at all what anyone thinks they are? I believe it does. If you’re watching a ballet featuring dying swans, for example, and someone says, “I’d say those are ducks, not swans… But thanks!”, don’t ya kinda think they’ve missed the whole point???
I don’t suppose Dale Chihuly is losing any sleep over this. I know my dog Chihuly certainly isn’t. And maybe I’ve just turned this whole matter into a ragged, unraveled heap on the floor.
Dog Chihuly’s work.
Maybe someday I’ll see that niggling little thread out of the corner of my eye and I’ll turn my head and there they will be… all my answers to:
- who gets to say what is art?
- who gets to say what art is? (yes, those are two separate questions);
- what the heck is string theory, anyway? and
- why are so many loose threads in life just barely out of reach of one’s scissors?
I apologize, Mr. Chihuly, for pulling the thread. I just couldn’t help myself.
H is for Hostas.
Daily prompt: Green
Each Passing Day
With each passing day
the past grows ever longer,
even though we already
cannot fathom its scope.
With each dawning day
the present forgives us,
and offers a clean slate
to create what we choose.
With each dream or hope
the future takes shape.
Have we learned from our past?
Are we setting the stage
today?
The Daily Post weekly photo challenge: Future
A Glob by Any Other Name. Please.
You look at these beautiful buttons of glass; a confectioner’s delight of colorful “candy.” And you ask, “What are these gorgeous pieces called?”
And I say, “Oh, those? Those are globs.”
Globs? Brings up visions of a lump of ice cream fallen to the sidewalk where the warm pavement turns it into a sticky – well… a sticky glob.
Or maybe a coagulation of gunked up motor oil stuck to the floor of a mechanic’s garage, dripped from an engine that was so filled with grime that the dark sludge came out in – you guessed it – globs.
But these beauties of glass? These irregular shapes and sizes were formed when molten glass was dropped in small amounts onto a flat surface and left to solidify. Flat on the bottom, rounded on top, and delightfully ready for incorporation into stained glass projects.
And, yes, they’re called globs.
Oh, by the way, if you don’t think that name quite suits them, I guess you could call them by their other name. They are also known as nuggets.
Feel better now? I know I do.
G is for Glob.
Mind Game
shadows and half thoughts
play hide-and-seek in my mind
I’m ready… or not
Fids Flatten Foil
For me, one of the best things about taking up stained glass has been learning the word “fid.” Scrabble, anyone? Sure, it’s only three letters, but that little word has helped me limp along on the Scrabble board more than once.
What’s a fid? Yeah, my Scrabble competitors always ask that, too.
Here’s a photo of a fid:
and another:
and another:
A fid has many uses in the stained glass world. When using the copper foil method of constructing stained glass projects, the individual pieces of glass are wrapped along their edges with copper foil tape.
The foil has a backing that is peeled away to reveal the sticky side. The sticky side adheres to the glass.
A fid is then used to press the copper foil more firmly against the glass, and to flatten the tape securely against all edges of the glass.
This is my favorite fid. The end edge was straight across when I bought it. The grooves were worn in by continued use.
After all the pieces are foiled and assembled, flux is applied to the copper seams and the pieces are soldered together to create the finished project.
Obviously not the same glass project as pictured above, but an example of what finished solder lines look like.
If you are using came instead of copper foil for joining the glass pieces, fids are also helpful for opening came channels to accommodate thicker pieces of glass.
This is a piece of zinc U-shaped came. The glass edge fits into the channel in the came, and the came is soldered at the seams where two or more came pieces meet.
Fids are full of fantastic features for foiling fun forms! Tell that to your Scrabble companions!
F is for Fid
Wordless Wednesday (Week 14)
Image
Experimenting in the 90s
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.
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.
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.
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.
I ultimately soldered my experiment “results” into this panel:
Window with no back lighting.
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 is for Experiment
Henhouse, Episode 3
“Ginger, the sky is NOT falling! Stop running around like a chicken with its head cu– … um… never mind.”
Clusters: All Together, Now
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:
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:
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:
And here is the completed panel:
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 is for Cluster.
What Rhymes with Stanza? 