Monday, September 15, 2008

What Happened to Friday? I'm So Confused

Coffee in the Austin skyline mug, "Spanish Caravan" by the Doors on iTunes--a completely random chance, though the lyrics resonate (heading for Portugal or Spain right now has more than a little appeal). Last week had a Friday, it was a studio day, why didn't I post? I don't know. It's a mystery. I must have headed for the studio first thing--or started my day some other way. Today is more traditional; I'm in my jammies, the family is newly out the door for school and work, and I organize myself with a post.

Yesterday I fired the "gems" for the studio sidelight project--over 350 of them made up of over 700 glass squares (that I also cut yesterday). It sounds like a lot, but it goes surprisingly fast with the Cutter's Mate and the Morton System. Today I get the fun part of designing the windows. You might think I would have drawn the design before creating glass elements for it, but that's not the way I work. I did calculate how much of the design I wanted to be "gems" and how much I wanted to be "other" (frit or maybe solid pieces), but for me the flow of the piece can only be done in real size and in color and texture. This project is for a how-to article in the next issue of Glass Patterns Quarterly and I'm combining several basic techniques for a whole new look--fingers crossed that it all turns out!

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Time has passed and I was not able to add the pics I was going to put on this post this morning as the gems were not fully formed and I had to refire them--the photo at right shows what they looked like before they were fired. Design, too, has to wait till tomorrow so I will ship and fire a full load in Bertha today. I suppose that will have to be enough!

2 comments:

Bill said...

They needed to be heated up again? They're fired!

Brenda Griffith said...

They are now!