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Author: Glass_Masters, Contributing Editor
| Why is glass so appealing to you and what kind of glass do you typically use?
The main reasons that glass appeals to me so much is the endless technical challenge. Five thousand years of glasswork precedes us and we are all still struggling with the technical end. I am using a wide range of different manufacturer glasses around the mid-nineties COE range. Sometimes I use Moretti/Effetre, a 104 COE glass all by itself, because it will not fit the glasses in the mid-nineties COE range. On the mid-nineties COE glass I will use anything from cullet (scrap) from the West Virginia and other glass factories to the imported and domestic dense overlay colors, commonly used by furnace glassworkers for blowing. I spend plenty of time compatibility testing to see which glasses will fit together without breaking. I also work on what the different glasses might be coaxed into doing appearance-wise in different stress-compatible combinations. |
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| So, Dave, what are the most challenging issues you face when working with all the different types of glass?
The COE, or coefficient of expansion, and the viscosities at different temperatures are the first big issue on types of glass. If the glasses you combine in a piece do not expand and contract at the same rate, and have similar viscosities at the different temperature ranges you pass through, heating up and cooling down, you are going to end up with nothing but broken glass. Fortunately for me, beadmaking and jewelry size pieces allow much more leeway on expansion, contraction and viscosity than larger pieces. The larger the piece the more accurate the match has to be. Fusing, or warm working glass in a kiln allows no leeway either, regardless of size. |
| Most artists have colors that they are drawn to, tell me what your favorite glass colors are?
As for favorite colors, always the reds, gold rubies in particular. |
| Wow, your favorites are very hot! What other colors do you enjoy?
Despite all the jokes about glass art having to be either big, blue, or shiny to sell, I still love most of the blues and the greens that tend towards the blue end of the spectrum. I also have a huge appreciation for white and black in terms of what they can do to light up an adjacent color. As a maker of small items such as beads and jewelry, it's an ongoing challenge to make things that will not disappear in contrast to their surroundings. |
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