Glass Newsletter - 23 Jan ‘23

I’m so excited to share my glass happenings with you.

I was wavering between calling this newsletter ‘All about my glass practice’ or ‘Behind the scenes in my studio’. Basically it boils down to the same thing as I’m rather besotted with making glass at the moment to the exclusion of painting!

I have news of a special commission that I’m itching to show off. I’m not sharing it to the general public so only you get to see how it’s coming along.

I have been commissioned to produce the prizes for the 2023 West Australian Society of Arts exhibition in April. There are 6 category prizes and a main prize. I hesitate to call it a trophy, as the committee want a beautiful art piece that reflects their logo rather than something that looks like a trophy.

Each category prize is a 15 cm bowl with a Western Australian landscape theme.

The photos below show the bowls before and after the first firing which ‘melts’ the glass pieces together into a flat disc. These will then be slumped (heated in the kiln so that the glass softens and takes on the shape of the ceramic mould underneath) to turn them into shallow bowls.

For the main prize I’ve been doing a lot of research. Glass is complicated to work with as it becomes viscous (sticky-ish fluid that can slump, bend or flow) at different temperatures depending on lots of factors that I won’t bore you with. So I’ve started a test piece and if that works then I’ll make the final sculpture. The pictures below show the logo and some of the steps I’ve taken so far. The last pic is not the last step as I still need to bend it around a little :).

Cheers until next time

Karen

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