My Metamorphosis project.

 

This is my piece for my Metamorphosis project.

The brief was to pick to opposite words and work from one to another showing 5 different stages in-between them both.

I think this piece could be assigned to at least three sets of words.   'Bud to Bloom', 'Flat to Round' and 'Clear to Opaque'.

I started by sketching down my idea - really simply as I am not much of a drawer - but as often happens, something occurs along the way that can send you off in a slightly different direction.

I knew I wanted to start with a flattish plate which was made from completely clear glass.  I created this by cutting the size glass I wanted and fusing it down in the kiln to it softened all the edges making it night and tactile and meaning there was no chance of anyone cutting themselves on any sharp edges should they wish to handle it.

I then popped it back into the kiln on a slumping program to give it a little shape.

The next piece I did was the same clear glass, but this time I laid some coloured stringer on it - stringer is very thin, spaghetti like, sticks of glass that you can easily snap with your fingers.  I laid down a pattern and put it in the kiln to fuse. (Bottom left).

I did another piece with some frit (broken glass, almost the consistency of salt) swishing it about with my fingers to create the design I wanted.  (Top right).

The final two pieces were cut a bit smaller to create the inner parts of my blooming flower dish.  One is transparent red  (top left) and the other is a solid opaque red (bottom right.)

They all survived a fusing firing and came out rather nicely.  So the next step was to pop them back into the kiln using a slumping firing this time.

I got together a few stainless steel pots and beakers to drape them over.  You can buy 'proper' moulds for glass slumping  (as the white one is in the photo) but I have had some great success with stainless steel and you can pick up so many different shapes and sizes, so I prefer to use them.

I use kiln paper, that burns away in the kiln, and just balance it on top and let the kiln do it's thing.

Quite pleased with the result of this.... although the frit decorated one doesn't fit inside the others as I had planned, so that one will be left out of the final piece.  Although it does make a pretty vessel all on its own.

Now that I am having to reject one of the pieces I have to start thinking about making another piece that will work within it.

So, I decide to make two pieces and work out which one looks the nicest.

I made another slumped piece, but much smaller and in black glass, but then wondered if I should change it up quite a lot and make a marble to pop into the centre.

Making the marble is a completely different way of working with glass.  The fused glass work is prepared cold and you let the kiln do the work, but when making a marble you work on a torch with hot molten drippy glass and you have to turn and shape and turn and shape.

Now I find myself with six pieces, so I need to decide which one to leave out.

After a lot of displaying all the pieces in various ways I finally decided on this order....

All coming together to create this one piece.