Happy Surprise – Fused Glass On-Edge Strip Construction

Ask any glass fuser and they will tell you that it is always a thrill to open the kiln in the morning and see how a piece has turned out. These days, my pieces usually turn out close to what I hoped for. But sometimes I can be disappointed. Maybe the colors don’t work out the way I expect or the design looks off to me. I do have a small stash of these misfits waiting to be re-purposed. The worst though is when a piece is cracked. Fortunately, that only happened once in the early days when I didn’t know much about firing schedules. And then… Every once in awhile… When I am least expecting it… … The piece turns out to be something different and better than I ever could have imagined! That is the case with my most recent piece. I took a sheet of streaky glass in an ivory and yellow gold color and cut it into thin strips that were 3/8” wide. The strips are placed cut side up, or on edge as it is often called, placed in a dam and then fired in the kiln to fuse together. In the fusing process the glass changed color slightly. It ended up being more ivory and brown. It looks a bit like natural stone – a really nice effect! I had originally intended to cut the rough edge off, but I love the way the texture looks and decided to just smooth the rough edges a bit and slump it into a sushi plate shape just the way it was. Here are some pictures of the process.