When creating glass artwork with recycled glass, color play often isn’t an option. By stacking and tack fusing, you can create visual interest. Using ‘white space’ in conjunction to ‘stack and tack’ gives you a huge variety of options.
For example:
“Space Between”
This piece is a large circular vessel. After cutting the circle, a 1″ wide strip was removed from the inside (drawing a square within the circle). Then squares of the same sheet of float glass were stacked over the gap and tack fused.
In this piece, the edge of the mold was used to draw a parallel line and then a 1/2″ wide strip of glass was removed.
‘Spine’ – Recycled Window Glass
Strips of glass from the same sheet were used to bridge the gap.
This technique can be used with any shape and size of piece:
‘Bridges’ – Recycled Window Glass Bowl
‘Tracks’ Recycled Window Glass Bowl
‘Grid’ – Recycled Window Glass Plate
Key points to remember as you try this technique:
- All the glass for one project must come from the same sheet (that compatibility thing, you know)
- Use a tack fuse schedule (full fuse firing schedule, minus about 125 degrees from the top temp)
- SLOW down the slumping schedule when you bend! The varying thickness of glass will make these projects prone to cracking if you slump too quickly. Slow down by 30-50% on both the ramp up and down.
- Experiment! Recycled window glass is abundant, be creative and playful, try some wild ideas!