Slumping Run - July 2009
Its not my first try at slumping, but it was my first real experimentation with it. The process starts with cutting and then fusing the glass. After glass it fused, it is flat. Slumping creates the three dimensional aspects of these pieces.
I wanted to make some little bowls, so I started with the round pieces of glass. I recently bought a new circle cutter with a better blade, so my round cuts have been getting more accurate. Thank God, because cutting circles in glass is a bitch!
Before Fusing After Fusing
Fused glass in/on Slumping molds
So, the stripy pieces have been experimental from the day I started with them. They were one long piece when I started, then I fused another layer on them and sawed the new thicker piece into 4 smaller pieces. I slumped two of them into ceramic drop rings, and the other two I draped over metal molds. I kind of like the little one that turned out like a votive holder.
The three little bowls are an interesting story. The yellow one started out with a crack in one layer of the glass before I fused it. I thought that the fusing process would just melt the glass and the crack would be gone. I was wrong. The crack was actually deeper and more pronounced after. Well, what the heck, I'll fuse it and see what happens . Coming out the the slump, the glass was completely unstable. The first crack was now a gaping hole and stress fractures were creeping out in every direction. It didn't hold together long after this photo, rather it fractures into pieces under its own weight.
The blue bowl fell into the mold a little off center.
The green bowl in front turned out perfect! The ruffled edge suits it perfectly and it seems perfectly symmetrical. If I do a little cold working with it, I can give it a smooth flat surface on the bottom so it rests neatly on a table. The surface of the glass has an unexpected shimmer that looks great in the light. I don't know how I achieved that, but I would like to repeat it.