I start the kiln and melt for you! Part 3

In the past, I have not made very many pairs of fused glass earrings and when I thought about why, two reasons popped in my head.

1. Making one pair of earrings is like making two pendants. (I know that you all know that a pair means two but bear with me.) The glass pieces might be slightly smaller than a pendant but there is not very much difference in material used or time spent.
Consequentially, the price for earrings should be higher than the price for a pendant. Actually, it should almost be double.
Unfortunately, I believe people would perceive this as overpriced.

2. In my somewhat compulsive thinking, the two pieces of a pair of earrings had to be exactly the same. And when I say ‘exactly’, I mean ‘EXACTLY‘!!!!

I am not sure why, all of a sudden, I felt that I needed to make a couple of pairs of earrings but when I started my color combo approach, I planed in a few dangles.
For some reason, the two pieces didn’t have to be EXACTLY the same this time either. It was obvious to me now that the charm of handmade jewelry is very much based on “imperfections” and it defeats the purpose to create things that look so perfect, a machine could have created them.
I am not sure why it took so long for me to understand that. I did always know about that principle and it applied to other people’s creations but somehow it did not sink in regarding my own work until very recently.

Anyways, here are two pairs:

They have been added to my Etsy store and hopefully the earring category is going to fill out a bit more in the future.

Let me know what you think please! I always welcome comments and suggestions as well as critique!

I start the kiln and melt for you! Part 2

My strategy from the first part of this post has paid off.
I picked two more color combos and filled another kiln shelf. Here is a photo of the pile of glass that resulted.

The design that requires the smallest number of firings and therefore got done the fastest are my donut shapes.

I took some photos of a few of them separately and once I get more pictures, a selection is going to be listed in my Etsy, 1000 Market and Artfire store. (Click the thumbnails to see a larger version.)

I am still working on the other pieces to make pendants, earrings and cold worked designs but I will need some more time to finish the next badge. So check back a little later =)

I start the kiln and melt for you!

You’ve seen the difference and it’s getting better all the time.
Or at least you would hope it does =)

OK, so granted, I could have fit more pieces onto the kiln shelf but I needed some quick gratification.
So here is what the color combinations from the previous post looked like when I opened the kiln.

I really love the first peek at the pieces because so often things did not quiet turn out the way you think they would. I live for that surprise even if it’s not always a good thing.
So now I will sort the pieces into categories like pendants, cold worked pendants, brooches, earrings, donuts etc. And it looks like I have to continue fusing more color combinations until I have enough of one category to proceed with the process. Can you tell, I’m trying very hard to stay logical with my arguments of having to fuse more =)
Well, once there is some more to show, I will share pictures.

Pick a color! Any color!

It’s been months since I last went into my dungeon of glass (aka the basement) and worked on glass.
All the changes in my life have left me with a lot less time. But I don’t think the reason I haven’t been creating anything is merely the new time restraint.
It feels like I have been mentally and emotionally busy with all the change. My thoughts were taken up by learning all the new things at my new job or finding a good kind of entertainment for the long commute. There was really no room left for creativity that did not address every day life situations.
But then, the other day, I came home at night and heard the glass call my name.
So I decided to just pick a color combination and make all the pieces I had time for. And today, I will pick another color combination and so on until the kiln shelf is full and I can run them through the first firing.

And it feels so nice to finally create something again.
Honestly, I can’t really tell if this is the beginning of a consistent creative work process again or if it’s just a rare occurence. I hope I will get back to how it was before everything turned inside out, but right now, it’s fun and I will worry about tomorrow  tomorrow.