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Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Making Progress - Steel and Glass

Yesterday was another day for multi-tasking and making lots of progress. I even finished planting some of the shrubs we purchased over the weekend from a fabulous local nursery we just found.

In the studio-
Boxed up some work that will need to get shipped out today. Yay!
Cut the steel for my tile plaques (using a small Hobart plasma cutter) Then coated them all with polyurethane. Today, they should be ready to glue to the wood backings that I prepared last week.

And I was also able to continue work on my fused glass pendants. This will be the 2nd of 3 firings. For this stage, each pendant slice gets cleaned with rubbing alcohol, and then fired with a piece of dichroic glass to give it a little pizazz.

Dichroic glass (as defined by Wikipedia) is glass containing multiple micro-layers of metal oxides which give the glass dichroic optical properties. Dichroic glass was originally developed by NASA and its contractors for use in satellite optics and spacesuit visors. It's pretty cool stuff. It reflects one color, and transmits another. Very glittery! But I think too much dichroic glass can get a bit glitzy and flashy for my taste, so I use it very intentionally.

I should also mention that I fire all my glass and clay in the same L&L ceramics kiln. "They" will tell you you cant do this, but I've had very few problems and great results. There are differences in the two types of kilns, but I've been able to work out programs that allow me to do both. This is just one of the topics I'll be covering in my workshop Glass Fusing 101 at Arrowmont later this month.









Well, I'm off to work for today. I need to work on a new artist statement and updated bio. I keep putting it off. Why are artist statements so hard to write!?!?! Any tips for making it less painful?

Thanks for checking in,
Meagan
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5 comments:

  1. Carolyn GassOctober 8, 2008 at 12:49 PM

    How I would llove to be at Arrowmont with you.!!
    Any word on the future of Arrowmnt? You know Townsand would be a wonderful area for them to move to, calm, close to the airport, and in an beautiful part of the Smokeys.

    Your blog is inspiring me. It makes me want to write one as well as get busy painting. I really enjoy checking in with you on your blog. Thanks for doing it!!!!
    CArolyn

    ReplyDelete
  2. Meagan Chaney GumpertOctober 8, 2008 at 1:38 PM

    Thanks Carolyn! I haven't heard any confirmed reports about Arrowmont, but the website: http://savearrowmont.wordpress.com/
    is a great place to check for updates.

    And though I was hesitant to start blogging, I definitely recommend it to others now. It's easy to set up, so just jump in with your painting, and start blogging! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Carolyn GassOctober 8, 2008 at 5:48 PM

    Meagan,
    I went to the Save Arrowmont sight you suggested. It seems the proposed development may not happen after all. This could be really good fallout from the economic situation we find ourself in. Nothing is for sure yet but rumors are flying........
    Carolyn

    ReplyDelete
  4. BrianOctober 8, 2008 at 6:21 PM

    I've always found Molly Gordon's guide to writing an artist's statement very helpful.

    http://www.mollygordon.com/resources/marketingresources/artstatemt/

    It's a lot of thinking up front, but then everything really does fall into place and it almost (almost) writes itself.

    If you have time, explore her website, lots of great stuff there for artist/creative types trying to make sense of business.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Meagan Chaney GumpertOctober 8, 2008 at 6:55 PM

    Thanks for the website reference Brian. I will definitely have to check it out since I managed to avoid working on my statement AGAIN today.

    ReplyDelete