sunsets and swirls and santa, fused glass

I mark my time by counting down to Christmas -- not waiting for Santa, per se, but waiting for the advent of the holiday season. It's almost "four months until..." and when I took this latest piece out of the kiln in the wee hours this morning, I felt as if Santa had made an early visit.

As I explore the properties of glass as it enters a liquid state and then solidifies anew, I am discovering intriguing properties that I am trying to incorporate into my designs. Unlike my familiar textiles, which offer, for the most part, predictable results, my glass experiments usually present unexpected results.

It is the marrying of this unexpected with the expected that forms my intention.

In this latest piece, I wanted several of the glass elements to curve in on themselves. When these are blown into a vessel/vase, these undulations should produce mesmerizing, perhaps dazzling, results.

Here you can see where this striped section curves under itself and is now covered by a tangerine transparent glass on the bottom, and a pale amber on the top.

In another section, the curve is and a turquoise glass merge, combined with my beloved black-line-play that I hope will be oh-so-delightful when expanded in the glassblowing process:

I now have four projects to ship up to Ryan Staub in Seattle where he will perform his glassblowing magic. Maybe I will have a Christmas-in-September once the pieces are returned to me.