Work in Process

I'm a bit spoiled, since glass is such an inherently beautiful material.  There are many times that I'm in the early process of making a piece that the setup with the patterns is so beautiful as it is, that I could just put it away and it would be fantastic, rather than blow it and shape it into something.   Yesterday was an example.  This is the beginning of a piece being made; at this stage the pattern, made from highly patterned tiles of glass called 'murrine' is on the blowpipe and I've encased it once. It will get encased a second time then blown into a large sphere (I can't post a picture now since it's going to be in the kiln cooling for two days).  I shot this quick photo while waiting for the glass to cool enough so that I could gather over it again.  It's hard to see the super-detail in the murrine, but this looked amazing on right on the pipe--especially while it was still glowing strongly because it was so hot.  

If you're interested in other process photos, follow me on Instagram (or just click through and you can see my feed).