A Fused Glass Chemical Reaction

Heidi’s glass piece before firing.

In order to get different colors of glass minerals are added. During the firing process sometimes these minerals create a chemical reaction. My studio partner Heidi decided to experiment with these reactions during her recent studio visit.

Lately I have been creating “hot fire” slabs of glass. The glass is heated to 1700 degrees and held for a couple of hours. At this temperature the glass is more fluid resulting in interesting movement within the piece. After a few disasters, I have stabilized the firing schedule for my kiln. I discovered (by accident) that you get more movement if the kiln is unlevel because gravity is helping the glass move.

Heidi’s piece after firing.

As Heidi prepared the kiln for her first hot fire piece she worked with copper bearing colors (blues and greens) and sulfur bearing (creams). To make things interesting she threw in some pink/coral which is lead bearing. As you can see from the pictures the chemical reaction formed the dark charcoal brown color. I love the outcome.

Heidi will be back in the studio next week. We’ll see what she eventually does with the fused glass. Whatever it is I’m sure it will be fabulous. It never ceases to amaze me how different our approach is to working with glass utilizing the same techniques.