So I’ve been blogging about my trip to New York including Corning, Vitrix, my present from CMOG, Niagra Falls, etc. This blog will be about my fused glass class with Amanda and Lance Taylor at Oatka Studios in Batavia, New York. First I’ve never seen a studio so packed full of coldworking equipment. Both Amanda and Lance were great and I learned a lot from both of them. This class was focused on how to create deep vessels with fused glass. Typically really deep glass vessels are created with blowing glass, but special molds were created by Bullseye to step glass into a deep form.
This is my piece in the 1st mold. It’s a nice shallow dish – very big!
My first piece broke in the first mold so I didn’t get a chance to make it go to the 3rd level, but that’s ok since the 2nd mold is my favorite. It’s like a tulip. Here are 2 pictures of it, however the pictures don’t even do it justice, it’s an amazing piece. Beautiful top and bottom. There is so much done to this piece, first of course is the building the glass and firing then we coldworked it and sandblasted it, then of course we slumped it in the first mold, sandblasted it again and fired it again in the second mold, and after it came out of the second mold we coldworked it again, then it would go in the 3rd mold. So much coldworking for this technique!
Our second piece is a pate de verre which means paste of glass. This was interesting because we made our own kiln shelf for it which was interesting – it was my first time making pate de verre! Sadly my first piece broke too so I only got to go to 1st level. I liked the 1st level until I saw Melinda’s and Pam’s in the second mold (below). The edges are awesome!! So when I get home from my business trip my plan is to slump it again in the 2nd mold!!
the blue is Pam’s and the green (front) is Melinda’s
Our last piece according to the class plan was a drop. I took a class and bought an e-book on drops, but every time I tried to cut off the edge I’d break the vase so I wanted to take another class to see what I was doing wrong. Well after watching Lance and Amanda clearly my issues were cutting the rim and pretty much I was doing everything wrong. In fact, Lance is coldworking god – I was shocked how much he taught us. Not only did they show us a great way to cut the edges off they also showed us a way to make the edges beautiful. This was also the biggest drop I’ve ever done. It was great plus all the edges I cut off will be made into something. She uses it for vitrigraph I see another kiln in my future!!
We also asked to add boxes to the schedule, but they take a long time to fire and we didn’t have quite enough time for a full firing schedule so they broke. But we know the technique and that’s what matters. I can’t wait to try these again because Amanda’s boxes were fabulous!!!
Most people would be upset by having 3 of their fused glass pieces break, but not me. My 1st one broke I think because of my lay up. The pate de verre broke (actually all 3 of ours broke) because of how uneven our shelves were that we built them on. All of our boxes broke because of our accelerated firing schedule. So basically we learned what not to do as well as what to do and in my opinion that’s just as important in a class. Plus Amanda let me redo two of them, which is what a wonderful instructor would do! But some don’t! Amanda let us do it without hesitation.
Lance and Amanda were really wonderful, all of us want to take another class from them in the future. I can’t wait to make more of each of these fused glass projects!!
If you would like to see my fused glass work please refer to my website Elegant Fused Glass by Karen.
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Keeping my Kiln warm,
Karen
