Its not my first try at slumping, but it was my first real experimentation with it. The process starts with cutting and then fusing the glass. After glass it fused, it is flat. Slumping creates the three dimensional aspects of these pieces.

I wanted to make some little bowls, so I started with the round pieces of glass. I recently bought a new circle cutter with a better blade, so my round cuts have been getting more accurate. Thank God, because cutting circles in glass is a bitch!

 
Before Fusing                                      After Fusing



Fused glass in/on Slumping molds


So, the stripy pieces have been experimental from the day I started with them. They were one long piece when I started, then I fused another layer on them and sawed the new thicker piece into 4 smaller pieces. I slumped two of them into ceramic drop rings, and the other two I draped over metal molds. I kind of like the little one that turned out like a votive holder.




The three little bowls are an interesting story. The yellow one started out with a crack in one layer of the glass before I fused it. I thought that the fusing process would just melt the glass and the crack would be gone. I was wrong. The crack was actually deeper and more pronounced after. Well, what the heck, I'll fuse it and see what happens . Coming out the the slump, the glass was completely unstable. The first crack was now a gaping hole and stress fractures were creeping out in every direction. It didn't hold together long after this photo, rather it fractures into pieces under its own weight.

The blue bowl fell into the mold a little off center.

The green bowl in front turned out perfect! The ruffled edge suits it perfectly and it seems perfectly symmetrical. If I do a little cold working with it, I can give it a smooth flat surface on the bottom so it rests neatly on a table. The surface of the glass has an unexpected shimmer that looks great in the light. I don't know how I achieved that, but I would like to repeat it.

My latest tricks…

I’ve spent some fun time in the studio recently, playing more with color and getting the accuracy of my glass cutting to be more precise.  I’m actually really happy with my progress, its slow, but moving in the right direction. More incremental than revolutionary. I watch Herb, another guy in the studio, do strip cuts of glass at what seems like the speed of light and I’d very much like to do that. Time. I just need more time.
Most of the time that I’m in the studio I am by myself. That is great from the perspective of space and freedom to do what I want (play showtunes very loudly over the speakers and jive along) but it also means that I don’t have others around for support or questions. The first time I used the kiln, Herb was there to run me through it. The controls are not at all intuitive.

So, Tuesday night I worked at the studio by myself for almost 4 hours. I had 2 weeks worth of work to fuse in the kiln and there was no one else scheduled to use either of the big beasts for days. I decided to load up the larger of the two kilns and run a fuse cycle. So, I cleaned it out, I put down the ThinFire paper and arranged all my glass. I closed the cover. Beep beep beep, I poked at the buttons of the controller. I knew I had to use “Program 1”, but somehow, the controller wasn’t working the way I expected. Beep beep beep, I tried the sequence again, no luck. Beep beep beep, another option, then another, and another, but still I couldn’t make the kiln start up for the run. I was starting to feel like Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” trying every incantation I could to make the magic start.

I gave up on that kiln, but thought maybe I could make his little brother work. I transferred the work to the smaller kiln. It was a tighter fit, but it all made it. Beep beep beep and I hear the click of the solenoid and the hum of electric current as the heating elements fired up.  Okay, it was finally working!! I was very proud of myself as I thought that in 22 hours I would have my finished work. Of course, now I felt even more like Mickey Mouse, wondering if I had done something horribly wrong that I wouldn’t be able to control or stop. I was asking an oven to start baking a recipe for 22 hours that would reach temperatures (unsupervised) of nearly 1,500 degrees. I actually woke up in the middle of the night wondering if I burned the place down.

Of course I didn’t burn the place down. Daniel accompanied me back the next day to retrieve me work. The kiln ran its cycle and everything was fine. I pulled a total of 15 pieces out and was overall satisfied with the results. Whew! Here is the whole collection



Commentary:

The sunburst piece didn't turn out at all the way I had imagined. It was a good experiment, but it is more a lesson in what NOT to do rather than how to to it. It is Blue irridescent glass under clear. the rays are stringer and I cut a piece of opulescent orange for the sun. Its a nice concept, but you can see the stringer through the sun and the construction of the whole thing is visible through the back. I think I'm going to slump it into a mould just to see how it performs.



The four matching squares are made from a cobalt blue tile under a piece of clear striker. I didn't know exactly how the striker was going to fire, but obviously now it makes a cloudy white. Its actually kind of a cool effect. in the second picture I flipped one over just to demonstrate how intensely blue the first layer is.



In an early project, I made four square with different stripe colors and irridescent white. This time I put the irridescent under a clear layer to see the effect but kept a varied color stripe motif. I liked the outcome, but the irridescence never really comes through. The cuts, however, are nearly perfect and I like the look. They are 4" square.



I did another foru squares with white layers under a clear layer and some stringer over them. They are cute but not inspiring. On the positive side, they are super easy to make and perhaps someone would really like them.



Lastly, I made two  8" x 8" square pieces. The first, a blue on blue with citron accents, and another tangerine on lime with cobalt accents. The blue on blue came out okay, but the color contrast was far better before firing and the accent shapes didn't really work for me. The second one blew my socks off and I can't wait to do more with the combo. I definitely plan on slumping this piece into a cool little shape but then I plan to try more with this combo. Its a winner!!

So, I finally pulled together a full kiln of work to be fused. I prepped the glass and loaded the kiln on Friday, May 29th.



For those of you who care about such things, I used ThinFire fiber paper under the glass rather than kiln wash on the shelves.

I returned to the studio on Sunday morning (just like Easter) to open the kiln and see how I did. On the whole, I was very happy. The long stringer pieces turned out better than I had even hoped, so that is a direction I'm going to go off in for a while to see what I can do with those. I think the process has a lot of potential. Likewise, the white squares with the color stripes looked good, though I got a little devitrification on those pieces that I will have to investigate. The tiles with the 9 little random blocks of color are fun, but that technique REALLY needs some work, as they don't look very neat. I have to be far more precise in my cutting for those.

Anyway, here are the results:

One of the benefits of joining Public Glass is the use of their well-equipped Cold Shop. The cold shop is where you can drill, saw, grind, blast, polish or otherwise finish cold glass.  Other than membership, the only requirement to use the shop is completion of a class that instructs on the proper usage, safety, and etiquette of using the various tools. I took that class today.

Only two of us signed up for the 4-hour seminar, but the other guy was a no-show, so I had a one-on-one experience. The teacher was excellent and the perfect teacher : student ratio meant I got a lot of hands on time.

For me, I found a lot of similarities to woodworking. Much of the equipment is very similar, just outfitted with different consumables that can cut through glass and with water cooling at the point of contact to keep the glass from breaking. Much of the work can be painstakingly detailed and requires lots of time and patience. It’s also very possible to damage or destroy a piece that you have put a lot of work into, so a good sense of humor is always a good thing.

While cold-working isn’t my primary focus, it already gave me some inspiration for what I can do with a few pieces that are in process.

Oh my God, I was in a foul mood tonight. thorendor  and ufcub  practically threw me out the door to go to the studio and work on the glass, partly because they knew it would be good therapy and partly because it would get my cranky-ass out of their hair. They were right on both counts.

In my quest to continue working on the basics, I decided to concentrate on wee squares (1” x 1”) tonight. There are a number of cool things you can do with small squares, including making circles, so I want to be precise with them.  When all was said and done, I cut about 60 of them, but I never arrived at a methodology that would result in uniform results like I did with the 3” squares. The small pieces are harder to work with and much harder to produce exact 90-degree corners.

When I was done cutting all these little pieces, I had to decide what to do with them. I cut 4 more 3” x 3” clear glass squares and then arranged 9 of my little tiles on each of them in a random pattern. The little white dots are Elmers Glue that will burn off and disappear in the firing process.  It keeps the arrangement a little more stable until its fused together.



Is it art? Probably not, but I kept working on my skills and it provided the necessary therapy to improve my mood without drinking my way into Betty Ford. Because of the irregularities in the size of the 1” tiles, I don’t have high hopes that they completed pieces will be favorites, but I do look forward to seeing how they turn out.

For the first time, I was completely alone in the studio tonight – no one in the warm shop or the hot shop other than me. That was a little creepy but it did allow me to crank up the music and sing along when the spirit so moved me.

Someone told me this week "Be Brilliant at the Basics". They were talking customer service, but I think it applies to trying a new form of creativity as well. The first thing I want to do with glass is get very comfortable with how it works. I want to cut accurately and with minimum waste. I want to be able to match two different cut pieces together so that they fit the way I intend them to. I want the outcome of the fusing process to be what or at least close to what I expect.

For me this means repetition with trial and error. Right now, I'm doing 3" x 3" squares. Today I really worked on my cutting technique and I have to say I am really happy with the outcome.  The stack of yellow tiles in the photo were all cut individually by hand, yet all 6 came out very close to identically. Each of the tiles laid out in the other photos below are actually two squares of glass stacked - clear on color. Again, as I worked on it, my methods improved so that the accuracy of the cuts created nearly identical squares to be fused together.

I started the project on Tuesday evening and finished today. All in all, it took me about 4 hours to make 27 tiles out of 54 cut squares. All of the glass is 3mm double-rolled Bullseye. I'll run a full fuse on them sometime this week.

So I really did it! After months of saying, “I’m so going to do that”, I finally got off my butt and did it.

“Did What?” you ask.


I joined Public Glass and started making fused and slumped glass in the warm shop there. I signed up for a full membership including unlimited use of the workshop, storage space, and a fixed number of kiln runs per month.  So now I have “My Studio” (as I like to call it when I’m feeling pretentious) to run away to several times a well and just play in a purely creative arena for a while.

This all started last September when smiley_kiley  invited me to join him in a 5-week glass fusing & slumping course he had signed up for (see post). It had always been in the back of my mind to do and then we had a blast together. I decided I didn’t want the fun to end.

I am going to try to use LiveJournal as a means to keep track of my activities, projects, and process. I am happy to have people follow along if it interests them. If, on the other hand, you find this re-purposed journal dull as dishwater, I will take absolutely no offense if you “un-friend” it. It’s really just meant to archive my activities and give me some sense of the Forest for the Trees.

Just a little 411 on Public Glass. It is a non-profit organization with facilities in the Bay View area of San Francisco, just off Third Street. The primarily provide the space and the materials for the Hot Shop (glass blowing), Warm Shop (Fusing, Slumping, Kiln Forming, and Flame Work), and Cold Shop (Grinding, blasting, cutting, drilling, and finishing cold glass).  Aside for providing permanent space for serious artists and hobbyists, they offer classes, workshops, and other special events for the general public.

About once every 8 weeks, they host “Hot Glass Cold Beer”. The artists create a table full of one-of-a-kind glass art drinking mugs and glasses. For $25 you pick your favorite one up off the table and  they keep it full of beer, wine or soft drinks all night. Typically they have glass blowing demonstrations and other artists are showing their work, often for sale. Live music and snacks are also usually on the agenda. The next one is tonight. May 16th from 6pm-10pm. Keep your eye on www.publicglass.org for future events. It’s a ton of fun.

On May 30th, they will be hosting their big annual benefit, “Keep Us Hot” or KUSH for short. It runs from 4:30p – 7:00p at the First Unitarian Universalist Society on the corner of Franklin and Geary streets in San Francisco. Again, they will serve beer/wine/soft drinks and will offer both food and live music. Tons of original glass art works will be on display and auctioned off with both a live and a silent auction. Come on out and enjoy the fun!

Okay, enough of the public service announcement. I’m getting to work now. I can’t wait to see what happens next…

You know, nothing beats Comfort Food when the world seems a little upside down...

I played around with a couple of different Shepherd's Pie recipies and came up with a variant that the boys and I really liked. Give it a go and tell me what you think. I take a gravy shortcut because I'm not that great at gravy and I love saving the time. If you come up with more improvements, let me know!

Kupkake’s Shepherd's Pie
Prep Time; 25 min
Cook Time: 30 min
Ingredients    
* 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
* 2 tablespoons sour cream
* 1 egg yolk
* 1/2 cup whipping cream
* Salt and black pepper
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 lb. pounds ground beef
* 1 carrot, peeled and chopped
* 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
* 1 Red Pepper
* 3 stalks celery
* 1 tsp rosemary
* 1 tsp thyme
* 1 tsp basil
* 2 heaping tsp chopped garlic
* 12 crimini mushrooms, chopped   
* 1 jar prepared gravy
* 2 teaspoons Worcestershire
* 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
* 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
* 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
 

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 12 minutes. Drain potatoes and pour them into a bowl. Combine sour cream, egg yolk and cream. Add the cream mixture into potatoes and mash until potatoes are almost smooth.
While potatoes boil, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add oil to hot pan with beef. Season meat with salt and pepper. Brown and crumble meat for 3 or 4 minutes. Drain meat and set aside. Heat onions and garlic about 4 minutes. Add carrot, celery, and onion to the pan. Add mushrooms and return the meet to the pan. Cook veggies with meat 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add gravy. Add Worcestershire sauce to taste.

Preheat broiler on high.  Spoon meat mixture into a casserole dish. Sprinkle Cheese over the meat mixture. Spoon potatoes over meat & cheese evenly and create little peaks. Top potatoes with paprika and broil 6 to 8 inches from the heat until potatoes are evenly browned. Top casserole dish with chopped parsley and serve.

It was a long day for me. I flew to DC on a red-eye from San Francisco and immediately went to the office for a full day at the office on a whopping 3-1/2 hours of sleep. I drove into the district tonight and tried to check into my hotel – they couldn’t find my reservation (yes, I had a valid confirmation number). They did eventually get me a room and central reservations had NO problem finding my record, but that didn’t stop the front desk person from blaming her ineptitude on me. “Sir, I can’t find your reservation. You must have made a mistake when placing it.” She really could have just stopped with the fact that SHE couldn’t find my record. I believe that’s true. I also believe she’s an idiot.

 

ANYWAY…

 

After dinner at Logan Tavern (good food, very mediocre service tonight), I decided to take advantage of my timing to see some history being made. Its cold here, just 42F, but I walked the half mile down to the White House to see both the last days of the Bush and welcome in the dawn of the Obama administration. Passing by the heavily guarded Hay Adams Hotel I was allowed through, but I knew I had more rifles pointed at me than a 20-point buck in November. It was TOTALLY worth it. Looking up at the soft lights coming from top floors of the building, I had a glowing smile, knowing that a new age really was dawning in this country. Okay, when the Secret Service actually talked to me on the corner of 16^th and H, it kind of creeped me out, but it was still cool.

 

I continued my walk down to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Of course, they are already setting up all of the bleachers, reviewing stands, media platforms, and of course, the Inaugural Stage. The contrast was incredible. The White House of the last 8 awful years in juxtaposition with the platform set up just in front of it where Obama will be sworn in just a few days from now. The street was quiet, only a few policemen and a couple of pedestrians.


                              White House                                                                                 Inaugural Stage (White House behind)
 

 

The world feels so bleak. The news gives me ulcers. Despite the cold, I feel warmer inside tonight. Something is coming and it really is remarkable. This represents more than just a new President, it’s a new generation, a new perspective, and a new way of leading.

 

I walked back to my hotel feeling more optimistic.

Beef Stroganoff

It is a cold weekend in San Francisco and we are all in a mood for comfort food. As soon as I mentioned Stroganoff,

thorendor 's ears just perked up. ufcub seemed willing to be sous chef, so we were off and running.
 

 

I hadn’t made stroganoff in years, so I just leafed through a half dozen recipes for ideas. In the end, I incorporated a bunch of ideas from them all, added a few of my own and came up with a recipe that I’m really happy with. All measurements are approximate. I don’t’ really measure anything.  Total prep time took about 40 minutes. It’s a little messier than most to make and requires a bit of cleanup afterwards.

The whole recipe worked very well and we were all happy with the outcome. The mushrooms were the standout in my mind. Deglazing the pan and then sauteing the mushrooms really did the trick.

 

Ingredients

 

3 T Butter

1 T flour

1 C beef broth

1-1/4 lb beef (I used tri-tip) cut into ¼” thick strips, about 1 in. long

Red wine

1 Shallot, sliced thinly

¼ C sweet onion finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 lb. cremini mushrooms, trimmed and quartered

1 stalk celery chopped

1 T Worchester sauce

2 heaping Tablespoons sour cream

1 t whole grain Dijon mustard

2 T fresh chopped dill

½ t salt

½ t fresh ground pepper

 

1 bag of Egg Noodles, cooked and buttered

 

Start the sauce by melting the butter in a small saucepan and whisking in the flour. Cook over a low heat for 2 minutes and then slowly whisk in the beef broth. Bring to a boil then simmer for 3 minutes.

 

Prepare the beef. Salt and pepper both sides well. In a heavy skillet, melt 1-1/2 T of butter and quickly sauté the beef. Do not over cook – just about 1 minute per side. Remove the beef and put to the side under a foil tent.

 

Deglaze the skillet with a bit more butter and a splash of red wine. Add the shallots, onion, and garlic then cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add celery and mushrooms and splash with Worchester. Cook with low heat until the mushrooms have browned and absorbed the liquid. About 10 minutes. Add the meat and any collected juices back to the skillet.

 

Over low heat, (do not boil) warm the sauce and whisk in the sour cream, mustard, dill, salt and pepper. Taste. Readjust the flavorings. Taste again. Readjust. Continue until you are satisfied.

 

Plate the noodles. Spoon meat/mushroom mixture over the noodles and then ladle sauce over the meat. EAT!!

Thomas Starr King  (December 17, 1824 - March 4, 1864)

Abraham Lincoln said he believed the Rev. Thomas Starr King was the person most responsible for keeping California in the Union during the early days of the Civil War. Keeping California as a free state was a likely tipping point for the Union's ultimate victory in that bloody conflict. Arguably, that makes Rev. Starr King one of the most important men in our history, yet very few know who he actually was.

Download the podcast from iTunes (episodes #59 & #60) or listen to the streaming audio broadcast of this amazing man's story on Sparkletack. I am not ashamed to say that I openly wept at the end of the story. As a community and a civil rights cause, we need to know this story because we can learn so much from his campaign in our newly minted state.

When he came to California in 1860, the state was bitterly divided on the issue of slavery. The population centers, San Francisco and Los Angeles, wanted the state to remain a free state, while the more rural agricultural and mining populations fiercely defended slavery. I hope I am not the only one who sees the Prop 8 parallel here.

Starr King turned the state around, not so much by rallying his friends (which he did) but by fearlessly and relentlessly confronting his foes. A great orator, he faced huge angry crowds of sessionists and delivered his powerful message of social justice over and over again.

Hear the story of how Starr King convinced the reluctant state to reject slavery and then, view THIS MAP OF PROP 8 VOTING RESULTS. I think it makes our duty very clear.

Trivia:
Did you know, he is the only person legally buried in the City of San Francisco? You can visit his sarcophagus at the corner of Franklin & Geary streets (officially Starr King way at that intersection) in front of the Unitarian Church.

From today's iGoogle home page:



No, I'm not terribly concerned with crocheting. That said, I clicked on the first link and read with glee!

For those of you interested in visiting the link: http://www.wikihow.com/Suppress-the-Gag-Reflex

thorendor  stirring up a batch of Turkey Noodle soup from the remains of our Thanksgiving bird.

Now, to many of you, this might not seem all that unusual. But let me tell you, this is nothing short of the Hanukkah miracle! My husband makes guacamole. Rarely does he stray from his favorite recipe. When we had Thanksgiving dinner with smiley_kiley  and nursetomsf  they offered us the carcass for soup and I fully expected to make it myself. I left the recipe for the soup on the car seat hoping that Thorendor would pick up the needed groceries for it today. Instead, he took it as inspiration to actually cook it up!! 

I see a new "up and coming" chef in our household. As chief cook and bottle washer, I couldn't be happier!

I was trying to conjure up exactly what I wanted to say about the passage of California Proposition 8, when I came upon the posting by e_ticket .

THE FUCK YOU POST

Please read it. It said EVERYTHING I wanted to say much better than I ever could. Thank you e_ticket.

From almost the moment I met thorendor  9 years ago, he has been telling me that it was his goal to retire at 45.  Over  the years we have discussed various scenarios to make this happen, but realistically, it was not to be.

Thorendor’s 45th birthday is this Monday. ufcub  and I seized on the opportunity to give Thorendor a unique gift: the Fantasy Retirement Party. We rented an art gallery South of Market and decorated it in Palm Springs Retirement Community fashion, then asked our friends to come in their best desert old-fart duds.  Well, as it turns out, you only have to suggest a theme to our gang. They’ll take it as far as it can go.

The celebration was as flawless as one could hope for. The caterers were magnificent as they tried to recreate Sherman’s Deli of Palm Springs. The birthday cake from Delisio was chocolate decadence.  Finally, our bartender Jacob kept everyone lubricated and happy.

Thorendor had a great time and that’s all that UFCub and I wanted. A huge Thank you to everyone who made this such a fun time for us. We look to having the next party when Thorendor can retire for real (Mark 2025 on your calendars!)

( Pictures behind the CUT! )

It doesn't matter if you are gay or straight.  It doesn't matter if you are partnered or single. It doesn't even matter if you are Californian. Proposition 8 affects every American who thinks their rights supersede those of organized religious enterprises. The Mormons and the Knights of Columbus have pumped millions of dollars into a fictitious ad campaign reminiscent of Anita Bryant's failed 70's rant.

You can stop them! We can help.

Whether you have $5 or $5,000 to contribute, please make that commitment. We need your skin in the game. Obama has proved that legions of grass roots donations can drown out the powerful few up in their shiny palaces.

$1,000,000 CHALLENGE GRANT!

For every dollar we contribute, another dollar will be donated up to $1 Million. The sooner they have that money, the sooner they can place our ads to counter the lies. The ads are powerful and they work if they are seen. See the Ads

Please Please Please Give. Anything will help.

Just as important, get out the vote. Everyone needs to know just how important this is.

THANKS!!!

Who knew that we would be so far ahead of the curve? Y'all come on up and visit us! We'll have the hot chocolate and parkas ready...



MOVE TO CANADA!

Ufcub & I are waiting for the curtain to go up on "Jungle Red", the drag stage musical parody of The Women. Varla Jean Merman is playing Crystal. Camp at it's campiest. I can't wait!

I don't take a lot of these online tests, but I tried one out today called The Politics Test

While the results weren't shocking, the questions themselves were very well-written and thought provoking. They don't give you any option for "Wuss" answers (i.e. "no opinion" or "depends"). You have to take a deep breath and take a stand. It made me ask myself why I feel a certain way about some issues.

( My Specific Results Behind the CUT! )

smiley_kiley  invited me to join him at a 5-week glass fusing & slumping class at Public Glass. I jumped at the chance, both because I have always wanted to play around with glass and because I adore the opportunity to spend some great one on one time with my buddy. We have two of the classes behind us so far and its been an awesome experience.

Smiley posted some awesome pictures on his post: CLICK HERE

Here are a few pics:


   My First Project Finished   (Smiley took this pic)                              Smiley's Creative process



      Week 2, Plate # 1 (before heat)          Week 2, Plate # 2 (before heat)

These pieces will be in the kiln this week and I'll see how they turn out on Saturday. I'll keep you posted!