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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Meanwhile, in the Studio

What a crazy week this has been! Somehow, between helping to spread the word and support for Arrowmont and enduring the slow, lingering Tropical Storm Fay, I still managed to get some work done. A Save Arrowmont blog has been established and is providing everyone with updated information as it become available.
My piece for the HandMade House at the Ramble is finished! It will be heading up to Asheville,NC and installed for a Parade of Homes showcase in October. There were several technical concerns I had with the construction of this piece, but everything work out perfectly. Specifically, it's getting installed onto a brick wall and the client only wanted to drill holes into the morter, not the brick. So, I had that to consider when deciding where to grid the screw holes.

I also switched gears this week to glass work. (So far I've only talked about clay on my clay-and-glass blog.) But I have a line of dichroic, cast and fused glass pendants that I've been making for about 6 years now.

Here's the first step in the process. The colored sheets of Bullseye art glass are stacked inside steel molds and then heated to about 1725 F. They're then sliced, fired again, shaped, polished, fired again, and then wrapped in wire. I'll post pictures of these steps as I get to them in the next couple weeks or so.

This is what they'll look like when I'm finished. I'm still trying to figure out how to get good portfolio images of these, so if anyone has any suggestions , Please, Please share!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. And that you're at least getting some sunshine!

Best,
Meagan

2 comments:

Brian said...

Ok,
found this, which will give you an idea what I'm talking about
http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/jewelry_photography.htm

They are of course selling various kits. I Don't remember where we got ours, but I think we found the tent cheaper, and the used a pair of work lights from Lowes with daylight bulbs in them. Much easier on the budget.

Their articles are a great start tho. The wax they talk about can also be found as 'museum putty'.

Meagan Chaney Gumpert said...

Great site! Thanks Brian. I just had a chance to check it out!