Processes

As a guide to describe the processes used to create the work you see on my web page I will explain the following terms:

Fused Glass

Glass that has been heated in a kiln to temperatures between 1250 F and 1525 F to form layers or to apply designs or to shape the glass into dimensional forms.

Kiln

An appliance used to heat glass to temperatures where layers of glass melt together or slump (sag) into a mold.

Pattern Bars

Glass that consists of different colors of glass strips fired together in a bar and then cut with a tile saw into chunks or wafers. The chunks or wafers are fired again in certain arrangements that create complex designs.

Printmaking on Glass

The printmaking technique I employ most frequently is silkscreen printing using glass powder instead of ink. The imagery is prepared on the computer, “burned” onto a silkscreen coated with photo emulsion, and glass powder is pushed through the screen onto a sheet of glass which is then fired in the kiln. With proper preparation, photographs and other imagery can be reproduced on glass.

Relief Printing

High fire papers can be cut into shapes and placed under a sheet of glass in the kiln. The temperature of the firing melts the glass around the paper shape resulting in a relief image impressed in the glass.

Woven Glass

Strips of glass are fired over a mold to give a wave design. The waves are aligned so that flat strips of glass can push over one wave and under the next one, creating a truly woven construction. The woven piece is fired in the kiln into a stable flat shape and then fired again into a mold to give it the desired vessel shape.

Sandblasting

Glass is covered with an adhesive backed paper that can be peeled away for successive layers to be ground away with a stream of abrasive grit resulting in dimensional imagery or in a particular finish on the surface of the glass.