kiln carving
So, kiln carving, for those who asked, all one of you. I didn’t pick a very good project to illustrate it. Here are my soap dishes:
This glass wasn’t made for fusing, so it devitrified a lot. The fiber paper stuck to it quite badly. I had to get out the so-called dental tools I use for poking at hot glass beads, though I gotta say if any dentist came at me with tools like that I’d run screaming. Still, they worked well for scraping at glass, same as teeth. Generally, these dishes came out looking like somebody had (quite sloppily) cut various shapes of glass and stacked them up. Which you can’t really do, not in this way, but that’s what it looks like. I don’t have any cold working tools so they are crude and wavy…but hey, I love them anyway. They’re my kindergarten projects. I guess I should give them to my parents, right?
Where kiln carving begins to shine is when you use transparent glass. For this set I had in mind some complex snowflakes, but fortunately I talked myself into simplifying for the first attempt:
They completely swallowed their little wire hangers, for one thing. The first one has a wicked sharp edge on it. I thought it might, so I console myself with the thought that I’m beginning to understand what is likely to happen. You could shave with that edge, I promise you. The second one, created in reverse fashion, is well rounded.
Glass is liquid, behind our backs, in the heat, hidden from view. You can’t make it do things. You can align what you want it to do with what it wants to do. I will never reach the end of learning how to do that.
parietal workout
I’ve got glass in the kiln. I have some kiln carving projects in mind for Christmas, don’t know much about it, so I will label this project an experiment.
Kiln carving really has little to do with carving and is not actively manipulated in the kiln—who names these things? It is a relief technique, related to slumping, but instead of letting the glass sag into a ceramic or steel mold, you provide shaping with fiber paper or other layers and lay the glass on top, and it fills in the spaces you’ve carved or cut into your layers.
If your brain, like mine, doesn’t work well spatially, it’s tough! I have a mystery piece of glass from the craft store which means I can’t fuse it to anything but itself, so I cut it up and set my sights on a fiber paper soap dish. (Let’s face it, I’m a craftsman, not an artist.) Had a plan all worked up until I realized it was bass-akwards. You can’t build up edges or ridges down the center and have the glass respect your wishes. The top layer is going to be smooth and flat regardless. It’s the underneath that takes the shape, and that means if you want taller elements, you remove fiber rather than piling it on, so the glass can sag deeper. I can actually feel stretched-out brain cells, but I think I got all the layers arranged. I know there are plenty of people to whom this would be a no-brainer. And you don’t care about glass, and I’m a neophyte…but too bad. Who else am I going to talk to?
The kiln tells all and exposes all flaws. I’ll know more tomorrow.
Cutting for Stone
I meant to be back sooner but I got stuck in this book for a couple of days there. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is one of those wild gifts of happenstance, a book I picked up while browsing at the library, not knowing anything about it or the author…it turns out to be the best novel I’ve read this year. And it’s already November, so that’s saying something.
The author thanks John Irving–apparently he’s a long-term friend–and that’s saying something too. There are all kinds of parallels here to A Prayer for Owen Meany, which has stayed with me for years, years and years, and I think Cutting for Stone may well do the same. Curiously, not for the main character, but for a secondary, Dr. Ghosh. Yes, the whole story is rife with medicine and docs–detailed descriptions of surgery only cementing the deal, medic manquée that I am.
What a great read. This author, this doctor, achieves such complex characterization. It’s his first novel. The mind boggles.
Rx: glass
I’m bushwhacking. Cutting my way through, chopping at the giant weeds that have sprung up, shaking off the moss, getting an encouraging glimpse at the sky now and then, even if it is balanced by the occasional boot full of mud. Sucking swamp mud. Lo and behold, a clear space ahead…why, it’s my blog! Poor old abandoned ruin. The blog, or maybe even me. Take your pick.
It happens over and over in my life: a kind of paralysis, anxiety run amok, a demand to know how it will all turn out before I even start. This is not conducive to anything, really, so instead I do nothing. For a long time. Sinking under the pressure. That swamp mud is vile, sticky stuff.
I escape the same way every time: one project, no thinking, just doing. Then another. Then another. I know I’m on the way back today. I’ve sewed the first approximation of some Christmas gifts. Mopped the kitchen floor. Went to the craft store. And then I cut glass. (It cut me back, but that’s only fair.) Played with all my new supplies, some fiber paper, Thinfire paper, circle cutter. Got some kiln-carving experiments in the kiln ramping down as I type. So surely the worst is over.
Thinking is still causing me some trouble. I believe I need more color and design, less verbal expression. Which is odd, because my talents have always been the other way around. But I was curiously happy just resting my eyes on a pile of bright transparent turquoise shards today. If they weren’t so sharp, I’d carry them around with me.
Hmm. Well, there’s beads. Duh. Bright transparent turquoise beads might do the trick. And I need more projects.
