Time Out!

Arrgggh I can't believe how long it has been since I last blogged.

Well I have good cause not to have blogged TBH - have gone back to uni and am now fully engrossed in a degree in Hot Glass. So I have been blowing glass instead of sitting at my torch and melting it into lovely delicate pretty beads.

But at the weekends I have been a secret squirrel making commissions for a few of my friends. Now I love my friends dearly but oh how I hate commissions! Why? Simply because you have to work to a defined end result and if you find that you can't actually produce what you first agreed upon then I feel a little awkward going back to them and saying that i'm really sorry but I just can't do it - I do always go back with an alternative that I know is manageable so all is not lost. But all the same I feel like I'm almost letting my friends down. My last "inability to produce" was due to a compatibility of glass issue (the chosen colour simply objected to being doused in bicarb of soda and then encased). But yes I find commissions slightly restrictive I guess.  Also there are the ones where you think "great I have some artistic freedom" and you think it will be easier.... but oh no don't be fooled. It is just as hard as I simply worry if they will like what I am producing to fulfill their brief.


And yes I get pinickity and fussy about the product and that is because I am having to produce to what I perceive to be their consumer expectations whereas when people buy my sets then they are buying the quality that I believe is good enough to sell. Does that make sense? Don't get me wrong - don't stop sending me commissions.... its just I find them a challenge - a good challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.

By Fluke or By Design?

So you have a rod of glass in your hand, some frit and stringers and other bits and bobs littering your work bench and you have absolutely no idea what you are going to produce.... it's not that you haven't got inspiration - it is everywhere - it is more that you just haven't quite got a plan as to what you actually expect from your finished bead. So what do you do?

Well I know what I do and if in doubt then make a bead (normally with a transparent coloured core) and then roll it in copious amounts of frit. I will then just use whatever I have lying around and just fiddle - a twistie swirl here, a poked dot there, and then when I have run out of space then I will usually then encase it in clear for good measure! Then it goes into the fibre blanket to cool and I start again with perhaps a different colour and the same frit and varying decorations and repeat. I will perhaps make 10-12 small decorated beads with what could loosely be described as a common theme - be it picking up on a particular colour, or just using the same frit or style of decoration throughout the beads. I then normally stop and have a brew whilst waiting for my beads to cool enough for me to "admire" my hotch-potch handiwork and see what I've got.

Once they have cooled sufficiently (I normally allow about 20 mins per bead before I take them out of the fibre blanket) then I can see how the colours have cooled and worked together. Usually after this I will be able to identify what is, or isn't, going to work as a set. I like to find that the sets that emerge from my testing are almost happy accidents. I find that if I sit down with a very firm idea of what I want to produce I will usually get frustrated and become disappointed with what I am producing but if I just trial and error the odds and sods then I will normally just develop a design that I am happy with. It is all too easy to look across the web and see what others have done and think - hmmmm yes I can do that - but the last thing I want to do is finding myself replicating someone elses work - what I want to do is be inspired by colour combinations and compositions. I love colour and have mountains of choice in my studio and I am having to consciously drag myself away from using my "old faithfuls". However much I love them I really do not just want to constantly churn out pink, grey and purple spotty beads!


So what have I discovered during my trials and errors? I love the watery qualities of transparent glass. I love the endless possibilities of using frit. I must work harder on testing the qualities of silver and reactive glasses - I know that my Hot Head will produce the goods and goddammit I will find out how!



And finally I really really must use up all the glassy goodies that I have before I invest in more..... and pigs might fly!