I signed up for a beginners glass fusing class at Fort Langley Art Glass this weekend. It sounded intriquing. It was something new to me and I was curious. What more could you ask for? I think patience would have also been a good mix with the rest. I didn't want to make coasters, dishes and bowls. I wanted to skip over all of that and make the small pieces that I had in mind when I signed up for the class.
Gary, a seasoned instructor, had run into all sorts of personality types in his years of teaching and he was very patient with my impatience. I can hardly believe I'm admitting this, especially since I teach and have been through this with students.
I finally did settle into the class and enjoyed it. There was a considerable amount of detail to learn about the likes and dislikes of glass, like opposites don't attract in glass. All the pieces need to have the same COE (co-efficient) and glass always wants to be 1/4" thick. This was important to understand when I was putting the glass pieces together. Of course there were many other things I had to remember which I'm not sure I did when I saw my first experiments with glass come out of the kiln.
When we first arrived we were taught how to cut glass and "break" it. Next we created a very simple piece and it was put in the kiln so we could see the process of fusing. I didn't bring my camera the first day so these pieces are what came out of the kiln. But wait, there's more. They were going back into the kiln to be slumped over forms. I wanted mine to just be a coaster so I could take it home, but after it was wrestled out of my grasp (just kidding) it was put into kiln. We were given a peak into the kiln just as it reached the all important annealing stage and then one more look as it was ending the cycle. Mine is the one in the upper right corner.
I won't be able to see my finished pieces until I get out there again. The black and white small dishes were still too hot to touch and the larger plate still needed to go into the kiln. I plan on going out there soon to rent studio time to make some pieces for my jewellery.
There were three other students who were quite artistic and keen to produce some very nice pieces. My creativity and ideas need time to bubble to the surface so I went with the "less is more" concept which really means I didn't have a clue what to design. :-)
I would recommend taking a class from Gary to anyone who is curious about the process of fusing glass. The classes are small, personable, fun, informative and very reasonbly priced. As a bonus, on the second day we were treated to fresh cinnamon buns before we started. Now how nice is that!
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