Glass Fusing…. cabs and tiles and plates, oh my!
March 25, 2007Glass fusing, while using glass and a kiln like with lampworking, is a very different artform. Lampworking is considered a “hot glass” medium due to the use of the torch, while fusing is “warm glass” as it is done in a kiln with no flame.
While I am quite new to this medium, I have been reading and experimenting furiously…there is so much to learn! For fusing glass, I start with sheets of glass rather than long rods as you do in lampwork. As with lampworking, there are many different types of sheet glass available, and many that are reactive with other colors. Knowing how each color reacts to the temperatures you are going to submit them to as well as how they react to each other is vital in obtaining the final desired effect. Of course, surprises are sometimes wonderful!
Pieces of glass are cut or sometimes smashed with a hammer into little random bits (aka “frit”). I also sometimes use powdered glass in some of my pieces. (I have lately had alot of fun experimenting with layering sheets of glass with powder and frit in different sizes and colors…..the results can be unexpected and quite interesting!)
Dichroic glass is something that I use in my lampworking more than I have so far in fusing, but is a very popular glass to use in fusing for jewelry. Dichroic glass is glass (usually clear or black) that has layers of metal oxides, sometimes in patterns that give special effects when the light hits it. This method was originally created by NASA for use on satellite mirrors. Check out what Wikipedia has to say about Dichroic Glass! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichroic_glass
Once I have the layers that I want to use, and they are all clean and free from fingerprints and dirt, I very carefully place them into the kiln. There they will be heated slowly up to fusing temperatures that allow the glass layers to melt into one solid piece of glass. (Of course fused glass, just as any glass, must go through the annealing process as well. -see last week’s entry about lampworking for more information on annealing.)
One of the connections between the two processes of lampworking and fusing glass is that sometimes, I am able to get some cool results by creating a bead in the torch, and then later, breaking it in half and then fusing the halves into two flat cabochons. The effects can be intense and more detailed than I am able to achieve by fusing or lampworking alone.
The process is essentially the same (of course there is much more to it than I can possibly write here…..) for making tiles or plates or bowls, etc. To obtain shapes, one must go one more step (sometimes many many more steps) to “slump” the fused glass into a final shape. The requires slowing heating the glass in the kiln to a temperature that is below the fusing/melting temperature, but high enough for the glass molecules to move a bit and sag or slump into a mold. You can also slump glass over a mold… The possibilities are completely infinite! There are as many more techniques for working with glass as there are artists using them, and as I discover the possibilities of those, I will share them with you!
For now…the weather is warming and my winter long abandoned lampworking torch is calling me!
Until next time….
Lori B.
