teknik

Exhibiting my work I am often asked how I make my glass. This is not an easy thing to explain in words as there are so many different “steps” in the making. However, I have tried to do my best here to make the working process clear.

I wish to point out that I use these techniques to achieve a means to an end. In other words, I am exploring different ways of how to express my feelings through art and glass and I found the technique of pulling canes to murrini and “roll-ups” as an excellent way express what I want.

In my work I combine three different techniques; hotworked, kilnformed and coldworked glass. Each one requires its own practical and theoretical experiences.

Murrini is a very old technique which the ancient Roman people brought back from Egypt around 1st century A.D. The first vasa murrhina bowls in glass were imitations of semi-precious stone vessels. This technique was revived in Venice in the 1880s.

To make my murrini I need coloured sheets of glass which I buy through a company named Bullseye in USA. I cut the glass and stack it in blocks like a sandwich.

After I have picked up the warm glass from the kiln on a blowpipe, I start the process of thoroughly heating the glass block right to the middle in the glory hole and press out any air bubbles.

After around 15 minutes in the hot workshop I can pull the block out to a 1,5 meter long cane. If the glass is too warm it will end up on the floor, if it is too cold I can’t pull it because it is too hard.

I cut the cane to small murrini bits which I later assemble on their side like a jigsaw puzzle and melt them together in the kiln. This is called fusing.

Wheel cutting and grinding, polishing, etching and engraving. A kilo of the glass disappears here by me coldworking the piece. This is to get structure, finish and a light absorbing surface into the glass.

The last time the piece goes in the kiln I bend the glass into its final form. This is called slumping.

I made these vessels in my glass studio with a traditional murrini pick-up technique. The final texture is received by coldworking and wheel cutting the glass. In a similar way I sometimes pick up a pre-fused tile using a technique explored in

Australia

called the “Roll-up”. I don’t have a furnace, so I work from cold Bullseye glass that I slowly warm up to hot glass in my glory hole.

I load a pick-up kiln with the murrini bits on a ”ferro”. Then I use a “pastorale” – a fork – to get the glass from the warm pick-up kiln to the glory hole.

Now I start the “traditional” glass blowing by forming and shaping the bubble.

My assistant bring a punty which I put at the bottom of the bubble / vessel. The glass is ready to knock off the blowpipe and open up.