Blog
March 2022
The news these days is tough, isn't it? It seems almost silly to be making and selling jewelry when others around the world suffer. Yet art saves us. While others destroy, those of us who create actually bring much-needed joy. Artists experience joy when we create and we watch others experience joy when they look at, use or wear our creations.
My husband and I aren't the type of folks to make New Year's resolutions, but this year, we decided we'd work to find joy every day. War has made that an uneasy resolution, but focusing on goodness helps fuel us.
I lived in Southeast Asia for a year when I was younger. One of the concepts I brought home with me is that a kindness given away then becomes another kindness given to someone else, and on and on until that gift goes around the world.
May we all find peace in these troubled times.
November 2021
The holidays are upon us! I hope you will look to Plays With Glass for your gift-giving needs.
I can't possibly photograph everything I make, but I can describe some of my new work. Before COVID, I made quite a few wire and glass ornaments, and now am making some from solid glass, using enamel paints and powdered frit (glass powder). I have a bunch of new Ohio pendants coming, as well as earrings to coordinate, something my customers have asked for. I have more colors than ever, and am bringing back some old favorite shapes.
My gift boxes have been on backorder for months. If I run out, I ask for your kindness in the matter. I will still have a bag for your purchase.
Since we will be in the former Elder-Beerman for the first three weekends in December (I will be there only the first two.), I am going to have a double booth with new products and space for breathing room. That is, safe breathing-with-a-mask-on room.
I have been in a few shows this year, all outdoors, and all have gone swimmingly (which is practically literal for Lilyfest, but we were all so daggone happy to see one another that the happiness overrode the inconvenience. What's a bit of mud, anyway?). Some shows cancelled, especially the indoor ones. I am looking forward to the one in the former Elder-Beerman coming up next month, as we will have a very large space, with normal booth sizes and masks required of all who enter.
I will be taking time away for the entire week of Thanksgiving. I wish you all safe and healthy days.
June 2021
The studio is once again humming with the sounds of old lady creaking bones while working on her machinery. I have made up 20 new tiles of luscious color, just waiting to be cut up into jewelry pieces. A couple of new colors, including white, are surprisingly fabulous. I cannot seem to get good photos of this color palette, so I hope you'll stop by and see me in person at a show to catch the details in these pieces. After Lilyfest I hope to be back on the local Art Market scene, selling with my colleagues next to the Athens Farmer's Market. Please stop by and if you are vaccinated and we know one another well, I may even ask for a hug. I've really missed them during COVID.
November 2020
World War C has taken us all on a very long trip into the unknown. I made a decision a few months back, due to health reasons, not to commit to any shows for the remainder of the year. It's looking like 2021 may be another year of sitting back, waiting until it is safe to sell direct to the public. I do have quite a bit of inventory in stock, though, and have made a few sales by mail. I remain committed to helping my customers shop by email for just the right gift for the holidays.
April 2020
This entry is going to be short, in that I made the loading page of the site a bit more of a blog entry than an intro page. The coronavirus has us all in an upside-down world.
I spent January and February doing some home improvement projects, then geared up to make more work for this year's show season. I remade/restocked my concentric circle fine silver earrings in three sizes, and like I have in the past, decided to restock some of the ornaments I sold over the holidays. Then World War C struck and I kept making ornaments because I could do so while tuned to the daily news, watching the horror unfold. Like many, I was just sort of stuck in shock for a while.
Now I am back up and at 'em and ready to get back to work. I have many pieces to show you, and more to make. The glass room, enamel work area and jewelry bench are clean and ready, materials are restocked and I have many plans.
Stay tuned to my Facebook and Instagram pages for further info. If you do not follow social media, let me know and I can create a separate list serv and send you the images by email.
September 2019
I had some fairly detailed photos on this page and somehow, they disappeared, so I deleted the entries that were associated with them. They talked about how I make my own blanks for copper enameling.
I have just finished a two day intensive with the world's foremost enameling expert, Tom Ellis of Thompson Enamels. I have so many new ideas and am excited and hopeful to be able to share new work with my customers this holiday season.
One fun fact I can share is that there is a difference between a kiln and a furnace. In a kiln, one places an object to be fired in at room temperature, and then removes the object after the temperature comes back down. A furnace is heated to the desired temperature and then the object is placed in for several minutes and removed hot. Glass fusing uses a kiln; enameling uses a furnace. A kiln can be programmed to act like a furnace, and vice versa.
October 2018
Another busy year, thanks to my customers. I now am working shows nearly every weekend between April and December, with some time off once in a while to walk in the woods with family. I am slowing down as I age, and savoring the moments that the days bring. Along with aging comes new possibilities, new goals for the future. My business will see changes soon. One of them is the regular addition of enameling as components in my jewelry. I am delighted and excited to have learned this new skill and am hopeful that I will be able to get more of these pieces out for sale this holiday season. Stay tuned!!
September 2017
This has been a busy year. Our Art Guild’s weekly Saturday markets have been well-attended and I am grateful for loyal customers. While I haven’t been able to get to photographing large amounts of my work, I have been able to keep up with my Facebook page, as well as the Find My Work and Upcoming Shows pages on this site. It is difficult to do everything well when you do everything for one business.
I have just finished up with a job that started early in the year, and that is co-coordinating the Marketplace for one of our local festivals. I enjoy being a Festival coordinator because it combines my love of interacting with others and attending to detail, attributes which fit well with making and selling jewelry directly to the public.
I hope you will check out my work in person at one of the shows I have listed. I am getting ready to work up some new Ohio pendants for the holiday season in a variety of colors. These have become a big seller and are second in sales only to earrings.
While preparing for the holidays, I hope to spend some time on bracelets and rings. Wish me luck!
My Oh My, How Time Flies! January 2017
Have I really neglected my website for so long? It appears I have. When you do everything yourself, it's easy to miss things.
I am here to say I have a renewed interest in keeping these pages updated. One of my priorities in the upcoming months is to take some new photographs in order to keep you up to date with what is going on in the studio. I have some new equipment that I have had a great time with, making your fused glass jewelry lighter and more comfortable than ever before. Plus, there is always new glass to use.
The best way to see all of my work in one place is to visit me at a show. I cannot possibly photograph everything, so I have decided to take photos of mostly representative pieces. If you want something in a particular color or size, email me and we will go from there. I can always take snapshots of pieces, text or email them to you and then you can decide.
For now, though, back to the studio. I have pieces in the tumbler that I am cleaning up for the library show, which will be installed on February 1. Opening will be on February 14, 2017!
Fusing Glass March 2015
It was suggested that I talk in these pages about the processes I use in the studio. Today I’ll talk a bit about fusing glass. One can go to the Internet to find a great deal written about the process. Supply houses for glass fusing equipment abound, suggesting that anyone can pop a piece or two of glass in an easily-available kiln can produce beautiful, useable pieces. That is basically true.
What I have learned about life, though, is that it takes 10,000 hours of working with something to say you really have some degree of mastery. This is applicable to just about anything. And in the field of glass, no matter what process one uses, certainly this is true. Although I have been working with this material for a total of 16 years at this point (three years from ca. 1991 to 1994, then from 2002 until the present), I continue to learn new things about the medium. Much of what I learn is by trial and error, although I learn from others as well.
Basically, glass fusing involves working with the material while it is cold. It goes into the kiln cold, and comes out of the kiln cold. In the time in between, the glass gets up to 1200 to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes around nine to twelve hours for most cycles that I use, but some people are producing very large, thick pieces that can take days to anneal. I recently read that the lens for the Hubble telescope took a year to anneal!! Annealing is an important step, strengthening the glass by bringing it back to room temperature in a very controlled cycle.
The very most important thing to understand, though, is compatibility. All glass is made up of basically the same ingredients. However, different types of glass have these ingredients in different proportions, causing the glass to expand and contract at differing rates. The standard by which this is measured is known as Coefficiency of Expansion, or COE. All glass workers know the COE with which they work, and know that they cannot mix COEs together, or incompatibility will result. Incompatibility will then cause the glass to break apart. Think of it as the glass becoming liquid in the kiln. If you are trying to fuse two pieces together and one expands (as it heats) and then contracts (as it cools) at different temperatures or speed as the other one, they may stick to one another to some degree, but won’t stay stuck for long. Therefore, if we have different COEs in our studio, they must be carefully labeled and separated, because it is impossible to tell what the COE is from looking at the glass.
When the glass goes into the kiln, it must be absolutely clean and dry. If anything is on the surface, it will become embedded into the final product, impossible to remove (except maybe by grinding it off). I feel extremely fortunate to have my glass studio set up in an old kitchen where I have a large sink.
Every time a piece of glass is cut, industrial diamonds are involved. Supplies are very expensive. In addition to a hand-held cutter, I use glass drill bits, a glass saw and a glass grinder. Saw blades, along with their drive belts, cost $100 each. I can go through one of these in a few days during busy times.
My particular process for producing cabochons, or pieces from which I make jewelry, is to make a tile that is comprised of three layers of glass. The bottom layer is a solid color, the top layer is clear, and the middle layer is usually comprised of dichroic glass. After I make a tile, I cut the pieces out and then they are put back in the kiln for a final firing.
I’ll talk briefly about dichroic glass. Discovered by NASA for use in the space program, the dichroic coating is comprised of metallic oxides that are fumed (or sprayed in a vacuum kiln) onto the glass, producing beautiful plays of color. The color changes when viewed from different angles. When sprayed on transparent glass, the color actually changes when held up to the light. Dichroic coatings, when sprayed on textured glass, take on gorgeous rainbows of color as the oxides fill in the hills and valleys. Pattern is produced by either spraying the oxides on the glass through a template, or etching them off.
Back to the studio! In a future post, I’ll talk a bit about how I turn these pieces into jewelry and other products.
Welcome to my new website and blog! January 2015
I'll start off my blog with more of an "About Me" conversation.
I have been busy since last year reworking the studio, after studying with “the queen of soldering,” Lexi Erickson, who helped me overcome Big Torch Aversion. It really is a diagnosable condition in our world! Now I have the skillset to offer my customers a wider range of items. For years, I have been asked if I make rings. The answer now is, “Yes!”
I do need to say that at this time, my focus will be on, well, making stuff, the stuff I like to make and that I think you may like. For now, I hope that my customers can understand that I will not be available to do repairs on other people’s work (I am ALWAYS available to repair anything that I have made). Occasionally, I am available for special orders, depending on the materials that I have available to me.
My intention is to stay busy in the studio so I can have the work to sell here on this site and in local shops and shows. Since I am a one-woman business, something has to give. Blogging has never been my strong suit and that probably won’t change, but I will try to offer a howdy and hello periodically on these pages. If you have any questions, feel free to message me at info@playswithglass.com. I can often send you alternate images of any piece, so that you can make a more informed decision.
I am also available on Facebook at Plays With Glass and on Instagram at plays_with_glass.
Thank you for visiting! I hope to see you in person at one of the local events in the Athens, Ohio area.
Now, back to the studio…..
