” Glass sculpture is a net that anyone may cast, but no one can control what it hauls in “
Glass in windows and doors do not usually attract too much attention from us. Yet we go into raptures of delight when we see little ornamental glass sculptures adoring showcases in homes. This is the paradox that is glass: something that is fascinating, as a piece of art, and at the same time, tied down to utility and functionalism. Glass is almost a living, breathing material, something that is fragile in its strength, and strong in its fragility. It is created and molded and shattered, almost a metaphor for living.
What better material then, to reflect existence in its myriad forms and structures?
“This is the paradox that is glass: something that is fascinating, as a piece of art, and at the same time, tied down to utility and functionalism.”
Art cannot be divorced from life. It is one way of comprehending one’s identity in relation to the special environmental and cultural associations held within the country.
People working with a passion from a tradition tended to be the people who had the clearest dialogue with their materials and processes, and did it best…
“Glass captures the ephemeral side of all that is born, develops and dies in a state of continuous movement.”
There are two sources of inspiration, nature and the art of the past, “ past being all inclusive, from cave-paintings to an art-piece produced yesterday. Nature… is the most important initial source… it is nature with its unlimited, varied form, structure and colors that constitutes the vital living source from which most of inspiration stems.”
Glass is born of a heady mixture of sand, sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate at a high temperature. First heated and then cooled, glass is malleable and the perfect raw material. Before fully cooling though, glass can be pulled, bent or twisted to get any shape. Glass can thus be transformed from a clear transparent sheet into little colored pieces of magic.
There are many ways of working with glass, some requiring large expensive furnances and cooling ovens, whilst others need only a blowtorch. The torch reaches temperatures as high as 2000 degrees centigrade, to be able to directly put the glass in the flame and manipulate it, requires great expertise.
“Glass is about dichotomies and differences: strength and vulnerability, protection and confinement.”
Hot sculpting denotes a technique in which glass is gathered from the furnance on the end of a solid metal rod (puntil) and shaped with tools into a sculpture. Using the puntil to make a perfect spherical bubble is the test of an apprentice. When he has proved capable of doing this, he graduates from apprenticeship and is well on the road to being a master of this craft.
Slumping, yet another technique, involves carving glass and then slumping it in or over a container to fit the form of the mould. Once the glass reaches a desired form it must be cooled quickly enough to stop the movement that will result in cracking. This technique involves the use of a kiln and is similar to another technique pate de verre, (French for paste of glass) and kiln. Both involve filling a mould with cool glass, heat it in a kiln till the glass fuses together at the melting point.
“Glass… as when the hand paints the inside and the mind enters the illusive space that results.”
In pate de verre the glass is crushed into a fine paste before it is put in the mould, for kiln casting, larger chunks of glass are used.
Adding different metal oxides to glass create different colors. For example: greens and aqua glass usually have iron, while adding small amounts of iron and sulfur produces amber and brown colours. Opaque white can contain either tin or calcium. Selenium is one metal oxide that is used to produce reddish colors. Some reds and pinks even have a bit of gold in them.
Although these methods sound simple, the objects created are quite often very intricate in their design, and hours of painstaking labor go into the arrangement of glass. One delicate piece may be worked upon for a week, month or even a year.
It was the Romans who discovered the fluid property of glass as it cools makes it possible to blow a bubble into the glass and create a vessel. And so began the saga.
These are just a few drops in the ocean of glass artists that have helped reconfigure our view of it as a mere substance of burden. Glass is about the pursuit of a subtle, exquisite beauty even while being an integral part of our daily lives.