We are always interested in learning new craft skills. Working with glass has always particularly interested us, perhaps because it is so permanent. The colours will never fade, the finish will never tarnish and it will never wear. It also makes use of light to show itself off and light is a wonderful natural thing.
Having said that, glass is a very difficult material to work with, both because it is inherently breakable and limited in what you can produce shape wise, and because there is a firing process that changes what you have assembled. Some glass, like pottery glaze, also changes colour on firing.
Whilst visiting a farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago we stumbled upon this lady and within a week were on an ‘introduction to fused glass’ course. We had a great day with her, and only 1 other student, who had some previous experience. We were therefore able to compress our ‘introduction’ and move on quickly to some more advanced work.
I made 2 pieces on the course. The first was an ammonite. This was made from a flat piece of lace glass, overlaid with coloured ‘segments’. It then had fibre board placed behind it to give embossed grass shapes. I then added green ‘strings’ to the front to add some accent to the grass. The pictures below show work in progress to achieve the final fired result above.
