So I didn’t head up to Corning this year – I stayed in NYC and spent 4 days doing a workshop at Urban Glass in Brooklyn. I had a blast, although I am totally beat now – I designed and constructed a three-layer 13″ square panel and learned to paint on glass as well as to use the sandblaster and atomizer. Also, it was about a billion degrees (working in a studio where there are multiple glass furnaces only one room over on a 90 degree day makes for some out of control perspiration… ) which really didn’t help matters.
We had a really great teacher – Joseph Cavalieri – and I learned a lot. He is currently an artist in residence at my favorite place in NYC, the Museum of Art and Design, and working on some cool pieces incorporating the illustrations of Robert Crumb. Joseph showed us some of his work and actually worked on a piece while we were in class.
Everyone in the class was very talented – lots of painters heading into glass for the first time, and a few (like me) glass people hoping to begin to incorporate painting. You can see everyone’s work stacked in the kiln here.

This is the finished panel I made:

I started working with sketches of ballerinas a few months ago, and thought this panel would be a great opportunity to play with the silhouettes as well as translucence and layering.

I’m mostly please with how it came out. Some of the painting ended up being a little bit blotchy to my taste, and if I was to redo this panel, I would probably simply stick with black enamels instead of playing around with blue. Also, some of my favorite bits are sandblasted on, and are only really visible from the correct angles.

I also made a couple test pieces that incorporated my swirling doodles I do a lot of while watching television. They turned out really well, and I definitely plan on exploring that a lot more.

One final thing – I forgot to post a picture of the stained glass panel I had been working on prior to this! I finished it up last weekend while watching the World Cup final.

It turned out really well and is now hanging in my office window. Now that its back to work for me I’ll be spending more time with my Study in Clear ;O)

Until next time…