plan b

the large cylinders that i have been working on for a while now, have not worked. this happens from time to time in my practice. it just has not worked. they were blown in the studio with the team, then cut in the cold shop without breaking them. here and then put in the kiln and slumped into large sheets of glass. all fine. then i made some stencils of an image to be sandblast into the panels. not fine. they just did not work out like i wanted. there are a few issues, the image i used was too detailed, i was pushing the limits, and that might have been ok, if the black layer of glass on the cylinders was a bit thinner, and the stencil overlap area caused me problems with the stencil blowing out.

it is disappointing, all that time and energy to make these panels, and at the last step it falls apart. but i have enjoyed the process, i have definitely learned a few things along the way. i could not use the panels for the original project, but i have not totally given up. i might be able to find a way to make them salvageable, we will see when i have had some time away from them, so i can return with fresh eyes. its hard to see in the photo, but it just didnt work as planned.

so onto plan B. i decided to make plan B simpler, as i had little time and resources left to make the piece. i decided to use flat black glass that is sandblast and fire polished, with a bolder image.

i got the materials, made the stencils and sandblast glass.

here is me in my respirator ready to spend time at the sandblaster.

here they are ready to go in the kiln.

and then plan B failed.

it is hard to see in this photo but the kiln somehow ran the wrong program so instead of going to 645 degree for ten minutes it went to 650 degrees for 6 hours! a big difference. basically at that temperature for so long the sandblasting almost got melted or polished out of the glass. although not enough for me to reuse the sheet of glass.

so onto plan C. to redo plan B. 

all of this has taken a couple weeks, but i finally delivered the glass to my friend andrew who i am doing the collaboration with. he has made a beautiful piece of furniture that my glass panels are showcased in.

here the panels are in the test fit at his studio.

this piece will be in a group exhibition that opens in 2 weeks. i will post some photos from that show as it happens.