After exploring several aspects of glass working, I found myself passionate with kiln-formed glass.
It refers to the process of fusing and forming glass in an electric kiln, at temperatures between 1100 and 1700 degrees Fahrenheit.
Kiln-forming encompasses several ways of working the glass:
- joining pieces of glass together, called "fusing
- shaping glass by heating it into or over a mold, called "sagging" or "slumping"
- melting glass into a mold, called "casting"
"Pate de verre" (paste of glass) is another form of kiln-formed glass in which glass frits and powders are mixed with a binder and pressed into a mold.
Glass blowing is the best known of the techniques of glass work. Because of its spectacular aspect, we often see glass blowers at work, sweating, pulling a blob of molten glass out of the furnace with a long rod. When they blow air into the rod, we can see the final piece being created in front of our eyes.
Kiln workers also sweat and manipulate molten glass. The difference is that it is not as spectacular, because all the magic of transformation happens under a closed lid.
However, this is the most creative and technically challenged of glass work today and many studio glass artists use this form of expression to make their statement.
The work is prepared at room temperature then placed into the kiln. Several firings, of about twelve hours each, are required to achieve the final form of the piece.
At each firing, time and temperature variations are crucial elements that must be controlled very precisely so that the desired effect is obtained. I rely only on my experience and on the notes that I had taken from previous experiments. Few degrees, few minutes can make a difference....
The heating and cooling phases are very important because this is when the glass can break and that several days of work can be ruined in a blink. This is why the firings are so long... patience is the virtue of the kiln worker.
Once the last firing is over, the work is not yet done. Sandblasting, grinding and polishing are the final steps that will give the piece its finishing touch. This work is called cold-working because it is made at room temperature. Specialized power tools are used, because the glass must be kept wet so that it does not break during the process. Cold-working can be hard and very physical, and yet I love it. It is a tactile phase of the work that controls how the piece will feel to the touch.
The glass that I use for my work is hand made. The fabrication of the glass itself is a very technical process, where various chemicals are mixed with silica. This mix is heated in a furnace, than flatten into large sheets. All is done by hand and, although each sheet is quality controlled before leaving the factory, there will be some slight imperfections that are part of the beauty of this process.
To create the imagery on my pieces, I use techniques such as silk-screening and photo-resist. The design is made by hand, scanned into a computer and printed onto a film. Through a photographic process in a dark room, the film is used to create the screen or the photo-resist mask.