My glass incorporates all of the normal glass-blowing
techniques (the ones that have been around for the last 2000 years) along with
some more recent ‘state-of-the-art’ technological advances.
I was first drawn to glass as a vehicle for artistic expression because of its
immediacy. To blow a piece of glass requires one to start and finish the piece
all at one sitting. The material must be kept hot through the entire process to
prevent the piece from destroying itself by cooling to quickly. After the form
is finished, it must be placed into an oven to cool or “anneal” slowly.
Over the years of developing my own techniques and style, I learned how to slow
down the process. The forms that I am currently working on use a variety of
techniques using the normal blowing process and what is called “cold working”,
which is a slow, labor intensive process of grinding and polishing the glass
after it has gone through the cooling process to modify the exterior form of
the blown piece.
All blown forms are done much the same way: by building up layers of glass, one
over the other. Using colored glass, it is possible to apply decorative
patterns between the layers of glass – thus creating the “cased” affect.
My series of pieces that I refer to as the Punk Series utilizes this layering
process along with a rather loose form of an Italian technique called
Millifiori. This is a technique where short, fat rods of glass are made up
using a variety of colors and layers of glass. This rod is then heated up and
pulled out or elongated many times its original length. It is then cut up into
many little pieces or slices, each one revealing the same inner cross section.
These pieces are then used by arranging them into patterns which are picked up
onto a piece of hot glass to create the colorful patterns you see encased
within my bottles, weights and vases.
My series of laminated bottles and sculptures use a combination of blowing and
cold working techniques along with some relatively new high–tech adhesives to
create forms with glass that could not be produced using traditional methods.
The major components are either blown or constructed by “laminating” layers of
glass with very thin layers of color between the laminations and are then cut
into parts using a diamond saw. These components are then used to construct
forms along with other materials such as stone and metal. The technique of
“colorizing” the glass between the lamination layers is a process that I have
been working on most recently. It allows for a considerably wider range of
colors than does the traditional hot glass process.
My latest work continues to evolve as I continue to master these new techniques
and Technologies and incorporate them into my art work.
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