Light and Space

Part of the reason I have been so madly busy lately is that we have been preparing for an exhibition as part of the current module at uni.  The exhibition is called Light and Space and features work from all the second year applied arts students, so there is ceramics and jewellery/metalwork on display as well as glass.  It is on at Theatr Clwyd in Mold for the next month - find the details here - all welcome!

For my pieces for the exhibition I have been working on incorporating images into glass blocks.  The images I am using are taken from some of my collagraph prints, recreated as screen prints and printed onto the glass.  I've then been layering up the glass and fusing it together.  The next step is to trim the sides of the block - here is a block-in-progress.

As you can see, the trimmed side does not have that nice clear 'glassy' look to it... it takes a LOT of polishing to get it back to that state.  And it's very easy to chip corners and edges during the polishing process.  And each block has four sides and eight corners... you get the picture!  I still need to iron out a few problems, the kiln temperature is not quite right yet, and the polishing needs more practise (probably not being in a rush would help!) but I'm getting there.

You can see the rest of my pieces here on my Flickr.

I'm still here!

Oh dear, I have been neglecting my blog!  I hope you have all had a lovely peaceful Christmas and that the new year has started well.

As you've probably gathered, things have been rather busy here.  I had a great first half of December in my shops, and then I closed up while we escaped to Florida for Christmas and New Year.  After staying at home last summer (summer? what summer?) it was so lovely to be somewhere warm.

We've been back for a while and I am over the jetlag but coming up to assessment at uni so madly busy there!  There will be some photos of glass soon, I promise.

I did have a lovely surprise the other day when the lovely Julie of Moaning Minnie (she makes fab hats!) spotted my ffflowers in Wedding magazine.  Do you remember this article in Wedding Flowers magazine in the summer?  It seems they have reprinted it in another of their magazines - an unexpected bonus!