Leaving Your Mark on Fused Glass

A sharpie marker comes in handy in the studio to mark glass. Despite what I have been told in the past by teachers that said black marker would burn off in the kiln, I always make it a habit to clean off any marker on my glass. Today I had a reminder of why I take the extra time to make sure all traces of marker are gone.

I put a couple of stacked glass plates in the kiln yesterday. Cleaning 90 or more little pieces of glass can be a bit tedious. I am fairly certain that my mind wandered and, therefore, I wasn’t careful enough with my cleaning. Apparently there was a bit of marker on the edge of two pieces. When the piece fired in the kiln and the glass flowed, the marker on the edge ended up on top of the piece. It did not burn off as I had been told it would! You can see it on the center turquoise square in the close-up. Fortunately, this can be fixed with some sandblasting and another firing in the kiln to polish it all up. Another lesson learned.

P.S. I am finding I have less time to blog these days. I will definitely keep at it, but my goal of posting once a week is not realistic for me. I am, however, keeping up with my Facebook page and post on it regularly. So if you want to keep up with what’s going on in my studio check it out and become a fan here: https://www.facebook.com/glassartbymargot