During a recent show one of my great customers who had bought one of my beautiful fused glass aspens came back with a bag. Inside the bag was the broken aspen. She told me that the aspen was on a shelf and got knocked to the floor.
Anytime someone buys a larger piece of fused glass artwork I remind them that it’s glass and therefore refusible. I tell them to just bring the pieces back and I’ll do something with it.
I was expecting there to be some pieces I could either make a small dish, nightlight, etc. Albeit, in this case and because it was an aspen it wasn’t that easy. I couldn’t find a piece good enough to make something really nice. But because it was such a big piece I am able to try make 2 fused glass pieces out of the remains.
The first refused piece I’m going to try is where I lay the broken pieces out on the kiln shelf and to ensure its all connected I laid clear pieces on top. I’m going to take this to a very high temperature probably about 1480 for about 20 mins. So it should all fuse together. It won’t be perfectly round but I think it will turn out pretty cool. It will take a while to fuse, probably about 24-36 hrs.
Once it’s done I’ll show you what it looks like then depending on how it looks depends on what I do next. I could coldwork it (i.e., cut it into a square or circle) or I could leave it in it’s organic shape. Then I can shape it, by either draping it over a mold or I can slump it into a mold. Of course I won’t know until it’s done. That’s the best thing about glass it’s so versatile.
The second piece I’m going to try is a screen melt, but I’ll discuss it in another blog. Meanwhile here is a picture of the first piece before it’s fired. I’ll do another blog when it’s finished.
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.
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Keeping my Kilns warm,
Karen
