Warm Glass Earrings

There are those times when you put into the kiln a lot of creative work and most of it doesn't quite work out as you intended. Yesterday was one of those days. I did find a few little nuggets that will soon be made into earrings.

 These are dichroic glass. The top ones are covered in clear glass. The bottom ones are dichroic glass fused upon black glass. They are cut in the shape of a square but turn into a circle most of the time.

 I will glue on a backing on each piece of glass. Then I will attach either sterling silver or 14K gold filled ear wires. The prices of all my fused glass earrings are $20.

Little nuthatches on white opalescent glass and three layers of purple glass are shown above. Next week, I hope to be able to share just a few more earrings.

www.carolingrammoore.com ~ www.artisansofthegap.com www.facebook.com/CarolIngramMoore

Stretching a Bit in the studio

 It all started with reading Contemporary Warm Glass by Brad Walker. I had taken a class with him at Arrowmont and knew the extent of his talent. In the book were photographs of slumped glass plates embedded with copper wire. I had copper wire in the studio for jewelry making. I placed copper strips in a pattern. Then, I just played like pick up sticks and let the stopper strips fall where they may. The pattern was much more interesting. From there, I fused the copper wire between two 90 COE bullseye glass. I had cut the glass so it would fit into a mold. I slumped the glass learning a lot of lessons. The glass spread nicely over the mold. The glass cracked. The glass had an interesting bubble which I embedded with a piece of amber glass. I let it sit for a day under a blanket wondering how to take it off the mold or if I would be able to remove the glass plate. I tried cutting the glass, which did not work. I then used glass nippers and cut off an edge. With a bit of pressure, the glass came away from the mold. It is in my glass case where I can think on this and decide how to use copper wire.

I had a full kiln shelf ready to go after I took out the slumped plate. I keep a large glass bowl in the studio of fused glass pieces. Some are okay and some are well, interesting. The cat looking up at the moon are two fused pieces I again put into the kiln on full fuse. Some of these pieces are so big they would make a nice size
fused coaster. The tree is the beginning of experimentation for a limited edition of Holiday/Christmas ornaments for Artisans of the Gap.  The copper foil tree turned out nicely and the red stringer makes a nice border, but maybe green would be more festive?
Oh, the joy of looking out at the mountains and creating in the studio.