Yes, I am an Artist
Glass is a part of my heritage. My grandfather owned a glass business. My father was part owner of a glass contracting business. My ex-husband even worked in glass manufacturing for close to 15 of the 25 years we were together. So it should come as no surprise that I too engage with glass. I am a glass artist. Back in the late 1980s, I was making stained glass projects or “cold glass.” In 1991, after my first child was born, I spent little to no time getting involved with glass. In 2017, I decided to take a “hot glass” class. This class involved making glass art in a kiln, much like a ceramic kiln. I would cut, mold, and decorate my creations during class time, and then the instructor would fire them for me. When I came back the next week, my glass creations were finished.
I enjoyed working with glass. I enjoyed that there were a set of rules, an opportunity to be creative, and then the mystery of what would come out of the kiln. I enjoyed being creative. I learned a number of interesting techniques from the teacher, and I signed up for the class a few times. I even took a class from another instructor who taught me how to reuse common, everyday glass (plates, windows, bottles, etc.) to make glass art.
Sometime in 2019, I decided to buy my own kiln. I bought a used one from a glass artist in my community. I had to have a special outlet installed in my garage for the kiln, and once it was installed, I was able to create glass art on my own.
Initially, I experimented with the techniques that I had learned in my classes and tried some new ideas I found in books and on the internet. I even joined the local glass guild so that I could mingle with other artists and see demos of their work. I felt overwhelmed. Seeing the work these artists created, I felt like a remedial artist. Heck, I didn’t even feel like an artist. Still, armed with a kiln, I placed orders for glass with the local group. One of them was going to visit a glass factory in Washington State, and he would pick up supplies for all of us.
At that time, I was also going through yoga teacher training and starting my own teaching practice. Glass seemed too challenging for me. I kept up some creating but not very much. When my daughter visited for the Christmas holiday in 2019, we created some glass art together. She had only learned glass art techniques from me, yet I felt like even she was a better glass artist than I was.
When Covid hit, my creativity went into a sinkhole. I stopped producing glass art altogether. I was in the emotional sinkhole that so many of us were in during those early months, and I had no interest in creating any glass art.
After learning to navigate Covid and getting fully vaccinated, I went to visit my son in Boulder in April of 2021. There, I found a fabulous art glass store. It was filled with rows and rows of beautiful art glass supplies. I picked out beautiful pieces to make glass art with. When I came home, I created a couple of items but not very many. I also visited secondhand stores and picked up glass plates to use for vase and bowl-making. I would occasionally produce a bowl or vase but not often. On occasion, I would gift some of my glass art to friends.
In the spring of 2021, I joined the board of the local arts council. We meet monthly and often in my home. One day a couple of months ago, someone in the council noticed my glass art. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the board was so enthusiastic about my glass art that they encouraged me to apply for the upcoming arts festival. I applied, and I was accepted.
Now, I am suddenly in a rush to make art glass items. Honestly, it’s not a rush, but I want to have enough glass art to stock my booth. I’ve never sold my glass art before. How much do I charge? What will people think? Will anyone buy anything?
Before, my glass creations were just experiments and musings. Now, they are a commodity. That intention shift is painful for me. It’s hard enough for me when I judge my own art. Soon, I am going to be judged by patrons of the festival. Yuck.
Now, I’m trying to balance myself between the having fun and experimenting, and knowing that ultimately I will sell my wares. I recognize that I spent a lot of money on the art glass supplies that I have. I even received a set of beautiful dichroic strands from my son for my birthday. I want to make sure I treat them carefully and create something beautiful with them.
Something’s been happening while I create all of this glass art. I am discovering that I do enjoy making glass art. I get in the “flow” of creation and forget to stop and eat a meal. I get that “Christmas morning excitement” when I open my kiln and see what I created. I’m learning to accept when things aren’t “perfect.” Sometimes a piece of glass will get too hot in the kiln and form too closely to the mold. Sometimes things don’t melt the way I think they should.
I also do a lot of work with stencils. Mostly I use them for etching into dichroic glass (glass with multiple iridescent colors in it). Recently, I purchased some glass paint and decided to try some painting on glass with the stencils. I went ahead and tried some smaller stencils on the glass. They worked out pretty well.
One day this past week, I was having a particularly stressful time after having a disagreement with someone. I was feeling frustrated, upset, and overwhelmed. I wanted to distract myself, and I figured getting into the “flow” of glass art-making would be a good diversion. I pulled out my supplies, including the dichroic strands my son had gifted me. I had run those through a tacking firing that stuck them together, and I wanted to cut up the now interlocking strands to make something else.
I started with a stencil of a lotus flower. First, I thought I would put the stencil on a piece of colored glass and fill it with frit. “Frit” is a fine or coarse powder made from crushed glass. When it’s melted, it looks like smooth paint. I first put some glue down in the spaces of the stencil. Then I carefully poured frit into the spaces of the stencil, choosing colors I thought would be attractive in each space. While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I picked up a piece of the tacked dichroic strands. I tried to cut a piece off, and the bits split apart. I was crushed. Still, I figured I had more pieces I could try later. It was time to peel the lotus stencil off the glass and see how the results looked.
The results? Nothing stuck. The frit stuck to the stencil, but not the glass. I was frustrated, but not completely discouraged. I cleaned off the glass and the stencil and decided I would paint the stencil on the glass instead. I picked out the paints I wanted to use and put them into my paint tray, choosing colors I thought would look best. I slowly and carefully painted the glass in the stencil openings with the colors I had chosen. While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I figured I would try again, cutting another piece of tacked dichroic strands. Again, the pieces split apart. Now I was getting more upset. This glass was a gift from my son, and it seemed I had ruined it. I moved away from the strands and went to remove the lotus stencil from the piece of colored glass. The stencil painting did not work. The paint leaked through the edges of the lotus stencil. It looked sloppy and awful. I did not feel like a glass artist.
I took a breath, cleaned the glass, and cleaned the stencil again. I placed the lotus stencil back on the colored glass, and I tried again with the glass paint. This time, when the paint was drying, I tried one last time to cut the dichroic strands. I’m sure you can guess what happened the last time. To put more fuel on the fire, when I took the lotus stencil off the glass, it again looked sloppy and awful. Not quite as sloppy, but it didn’t matter. At this point, I was in a pool of tears. I felt like a failure, and I felt like I had let down my son by ruining the gift he had given me. I texted him and told him what a horrible person I was. He responded with, “There’s always more glass.” While initially this response seemed invalidating, it was true. He then said, “I can def relate. I’m always sad when gifts reach their EOL.” He was right. My attachment to this glass was unreasonable. It had given me joy when I received it. I got to experiment with it when I tacked and cut it. It’s not a total loss. I do have the bits that I can add to different jewelry pendants. I was making lots of those. I could make more pendants with the strand bits.
I looked at the lotus flower stencil. It was a beautiful stencil, but it wasn’t made for glass paint, apparently. The painting stencils on glass exercise was new for me. This was my third or fourth attempt. I couldn’t expect to have mastered it in so few tries. I washed off the stencil and I washed off the piece of colored glass. I made something else with the piece of colored glass. Then I cut a piece of dichroic glass and placed the lotus stencil on top. I etched the lotus this time. It came out well. I placed a piece of clear glass on top of it and put it in my kiln with all the other glass art that I was firing that day.
When I visited the kiln the next morning, I was treated to quite a surprise. Most of the pieces came out beautifully, including the lotus flower. The phrase, “no mud, no lotus” came to mind as I lifted the piece out of the kiln. It was a reminder that glass is just glass. All was not lost. Sure, I have paid plenty of money for my glass supplies. But where is the joy? It’s in the creating, experimenting, and opening that kiln at the end of a firing. Hopefully my art will bring joy to others. A few friends who have seen my work have been enthusiastic about it. Still, I have to remember this process is about me and how I can enjoy and appreciate making art for art’s sake. We will see what will happen at the arts festival and how I will feel after it is all said and done. For now, I will take my art one piece of glass at a time.
