the second 45

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.

You will get cut. You will get burned. If this troubles you, take painting lessons.

That’s my favorite warm-glass t-shirt. But this week it’s too hot to melt glass. Or shall I embrace the obvious hyperbole: it’s almost hot enough outside to melt glass. It’s definitely too hot to sit in front of a torch. The kiln can soldier on, though–it’s not going to make the garage perceptibly warmer. I’m still on bottles, although I’ve overcooked a few in my zeal. It’s nice being able to experiment on free trash. I bought a couple of casting molds too, and some mica powder to play with. Glass crushing is to become my next skill. Seems easier than precision cutting, whereat I have not yet arrived.

Everything outside is getting burned just sitting there. We’re breaking all kinds of heat records this week. We’re on stage 2 water restrictions, and I continue to indulge murderous fantasies directed at my lawn and so-called landscaping. I’m thinking a nice rock garden for next year…for growing rocks. They don’t drink much.

Creatures are suffering and on the move looking for water. T and Milo even saw a porcupine the other day. Milo was on a leash or we’d have a disaster story to tell. The chickens are quite put out and wait impatiently for noon every day when I let them out of the hot chicken yard into the hot backyard, where there is at least a little green shade left to enjoy. Mojo, that most sensible old dog, wants to go outside only three times a day: once for dawn patrol, once to help me feed the chickens, and once for dinner in the evening. Otherwise he’s counting his blessings and his zzzzzz’s in air-conditioned bliss.

Scheduled trips to Portland and Finland sustain me. But Portland has Bullseye glass. Finland has Iittala. There’s no escaping this heat. Glass is always hotter than whatever else is happening.

I guess everybody who gets a kiln slumps a few bottles. I don’t mind being one of the herd. Saggy bottles are neato. Everybody likes them. And they’re not entirely predictable, so there’s always that moment of great anticipation just before lifting the kiln lid.

The Martini & Rossi bottle that went out to Dad on Sunday: This is a vermouth bottle so it seemed right for an olive tray complete with little forks.

The blue one here is a Bombay Sapphire gin bottle. I’ve taken up collecting odd shapes. Can’t wait to see what happens to the boot:

So thanks, littering douchehounds who drive through my neighborhood on Saturday nights. I’ll take your empty beer bottles and use them for general niftiness.

You can keep those used condoms, though. They’ll never sell on Etsy.