Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Pot Melt Glass


Over the past year, many of my new pieces were made with a technique known as "pot melt".  Starting with a clay flower pot, I drilled extra holes in the bottom.  Then I filled the pot with stips of various coloured glass sitting on end.  On the kiln shelf I created a mold for the pot melt using fibre paper, and then suspended the flower pot of glass a few inches above that spot.  While the kiln was held at 1400F for 6 hours of more, the glass melted and dripped through onto the kiln shelf with the colours mixing in interesting patterns.  Once the pot melt had cooled I was able to shape it using coldworking tools and then slump it into the desired final shape.  Of course many of the initial trys were not successful until I found out which colours could be mixed safely together and which reacted together to form a black blob!  Here's one of the finished pieces that won 2nd place at the Blue Mountain Foundation for the Arts Juried Art Show this year and a few of my other favourites.