Adventures in slumping

So as some of you know, I have been playing around with glass the past few years, both fusing and slumping it in various forms in my home studio. I received my big kiln the week before my second daughter was born, a little over a year ago. You can check out some of my current work here on my glass Web site at: http://www.rockwaterglass.com or also I am selling a few items on Etsy http://www.rockwaterglass.etsy.com.

Here lately, due to tough economic times and also my own curiosity, I started slumping beer, wine and other booze bottles I have gathered from friends and family. I think the technical term is "sagging" the bottles. I find the results very interesting. I still do plenty of forms in Bullseye glass, which I love! But I try to be really purposeful and frugal with the premium glass.

The bottles are kind of interesting I think, though I am not sure I have found the right audience for them. Sagging them is pretty simple, no cutting even, I just clean them really well, and heat them up slowly to 1500 degrees and then cool them slowly and anneal andcool some more. This is pretty easily done with my progammable kiln, which is awesome, I might add.

The process of sagging makes the bottle retain its basic shape, but it just flattens out. Then I turn the bottles into different things like sun catchers, hanging the flattened bottle from a strand of various beads and chandelier parts. I also make cheese plates out of wine bottles. If nothing else, they make interesting conversation starters. When I was working at the Oakhurst Arts and Music Festival this past October, it was funny to me how many people stopped to check the "recycled bottle" cheese plates out, and ask me questions about them, it was pretty cool actually, talking to people about it. I call it "green" art.

Yesterday I wanted to see what would happen if I fused two bottles together, and the piece came out kind of interesting, not sure what to do with it now though, it didn't quite slump as much as I wanted it to, but they didn't break, because I used the same color glass. I am not sure if the melting temp varies for different colors of bottle glass, so it is all kind of experimental. It's fun though and it takes my mind off my troubles for a little while.

I also slumped some stained glass pieces I had that I can't fuse to other pieces of glass, because I don't know if it is compatible, but I slumped them by themselves over a slumping form to make a vase or candle holders.

It amuses me to see what will come out of my kiln, that is the magic of glass though, you can plan for it to look a certain way to a point, but the rest of it is, as far as how it turns out, is not so predictable. To me the process is sort of like raising children. You can guide them, you can teach them, love them, try to keep them on a safe path, but the rest is kind of up to fate maybe? Not sure if it is fate or what? But I am just hoping for the best!

That is all.

Molly