I love creating commercial / production fused glass art. One of the places I create functional glass for is a wonderful restaurant in Aspen. The head chef always challenges me with new requests. I’ve made several dishes for him including Caviar dishes, platters, and bowls.
I’ve been working on a new set of 36 bowls for him over the last several weeks; they are a beautiful sea green glass.
When he asked me for green I did 3 samples of transparent greens (below) and he chose this beautiful sea green. I put my ring in one of the dishes so you can see the size. They make great little dishes.
- When making commercial pieces I typically do each step all at once.
- First I like to make my bowls at least 2 layers of glass (one clear and one sea green) I had to cut 72 circles (I always make a couple extra so I actually cut 76).
- After cutting the circles I hand washed every one of the circles. Then I stacked the clear glass on top of the green and full fused them. The circles are quite large so I could only fused 4 in my kiln at a time.
- After they are all full fused it’s time to slump them. Did I mention he wanted the bowls pretty deep. In case you didn’t know, it’s not that easy to make a deep bowl in glass. Even though the bowls are beautiful they aren’t perfect. Slumping is a tricky process and depending on where the pieces are in the kiln depends on how they slump. Other issues can also occur, the glass can pick up the texture of the mold or one side may slump lower than another.
- Of course to me that’s what’s wonderful about handmade glass, even with production work each one is different.
- I hope he likes them. I so love knowing that my fused glass artwork is in such a wonderful restaurant here in Colorado.
I also made a few smaller bowls. I think they are so cute.
If you would like a custom fused glass dish or several for commercial purposes please email me (elegantfusedglass@gmail.com). If you would like to see more of my fused glass work please refer to my website Elegant Fused Glass by Karen. If you get a chance, check out all my sites, Fused Glass by Karen, My Etsy store, my Art fire Store, my Pinterest, and Elegant Fused Glass by Karen youtube. If you would like to stay abreast of what I’m up-to and learn a little more about jewelry, check out our newsletter
