Sometimes I like to make a mess…

When I sit down at my torch quite often I have a list of different bead styles or color combination that I want to make and I will go down the list and plug away at making beads until I have either filled the kiln or finished the list. However sometimes I just like to look at my glass and say “What if…” and that is when I make a mess. Here are a couple of pictures of my latest mess.

I started out with a rod of EDP (evil devitrifying purple) that just happened to be on my table. Then I threw on some left over copper and silver leaf that was floating around from that day’s work, a scrap of latticino and some reduction frit that I had used earlier that day finished my mess. Then I fried the puppy. Copper is very cool when it fries, you can actually watch it boil on the bead, that’s where the light dusting of blue came from, that isn’t enamel, that is boiled copper.

Not only do these messes relieve any boredom I might have during a particular session but they also teach me a little more about glass and glass chemistry each time I make one of these. In this bead I learned that you really have to boil the snot out of copper for it to do anything more interesting that a grey crud when using it on the surface. I also learned that boiled copper leaves an interesting texture on the bead, sort of like a very finely pebbled lizard skin texture. I also learned that reducing silver leaf on EDP can turn the EDP around it a sort of corally-orangy-pink, you can sort of see the color I refer to on the first picture at the top of the bead, I think it is rather pretty.

These things that I learned from this bead are just a very few of the things I have learned from my ‘Mess’ beads. This is why sometimes I like to make a mess.

Heather blogs from her home in Watertown, WI. You can see more of her work at www.squareonebeads.com.

Some days, the glass doesn’t flow.

Some days, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, no matter what direction the wind is coming from the glass just won’t do what you want it to. You can beg and plead with your muse, hold your tongue a certain way, sacrifice your first born (just kidding, I don’t have kids) but soon you come to the realization that it just isn’t in the stars for you that day.

When that happens, if you are a full time glass/jewelry artist or if you are working towards being one (like I am) it helps if you have a second or third art to fall back on for a little while so you can take your mind off of the failed glass attempts of the day. I find that if I have a really bad day at the torch it is absolutely vital for me to do something else. If I do not do something else and try to bull my way thru the glass project I waste a lot more glass, get even more frustrated, and find that my troubles will tend to carry over to the next day.

On the other hand, if I walk away from the torch and work on something else for the day I can come back to the torch the next day and slip into the zen of fire like the day before never happened.

I have always been really inspired by nature so my fall back is making silver leaves out of real leaves and silver paste. I love to walk out into my flower garden and hunting for well formed leaves to preserve in silver. Rose leaves are some of my favorites. The act of creating a silver leaf is a zen moment in itself, the time spent on adding the layer upon layer of paste, the time spent brushing and burnishing the piece after its been fired all leave me feeling calm and tranquil, exactly what I need on a day when the glass doesn’t flow.

Heather blogs from her home in Wisconsin. You can read more about her here or see her work for sale here. She also sells on Ebay, Just Beads, and Etsy under the name squareonebeads.

Disappointment as Inspiration

In my last post I mentioned how excited I was about my upcoming class with Kim Fields. Well, unfortunately, that class was cancelled. I wanted to cry. Not only had I been excited about taking a class with someone like Kim, but it was a major purchase that was going to be paid for with my business funds and absolutely no personal funds. For me that is a huge deal, most of the major purchases have been paid for by personal funds or bought for my by my darling husband’s business. So I was hugely disappointed for two reasons.

I managed to get over it though and decided if I couldn’t take a class to help learn heat control I would try to do it myself. So now my challenge is sculptural beads. Not only do you have to have good heat control in order not to melt the various features into one another. You also need good heat control to make sure that your piece stays warm enough that it doesn’t break either in the construction process or in the kiln during annealing.

So I tried, and tried, and tried, and tried. And after about a dozen attempts that either exploded during construction or cracked in half during annealing I decided to try something small. I finally succeeded with something small.

I don’t know about you but I think he turned out cute He isn’t ornate or complicated but he is in one piece with no thermal cracks. Its a major victory for me I even liked him and his cheese so much that I turned them into earrings for myself.

I have officially learned my lesson. I will work on small pieces until I learn the heat control to make larger pieces.

Only the future can show if I suceed.

Heather blogs from her home studio. You can see her work at Square One Beads.

Fear as Inspiration

Torch time is play time for me. Normally, I sit at my torch, start melting some glass and feel my worries flow away with the first molten drop that hits the water. Yes, I do that on purpose. I take a rod of cheap glass, get it nice and gooey and let it drip into the water. There is something very therapeutic about watching the glass flow to a watery, sizzly death. The sizzle makes me smile and I imagine my troubles flowing and shattering just like the glass does. After that first drop I am ready to work.

Sometimes though, fear creeps in despite my watery therapy. In my last blog I mentioned that I needed work on my dot placement and stringer control. I normally take a very laid back approach to practicing both of these. If I goof then I do a gravity swirl and call the bead an organic. It’s a very no pressure way of working. Now, however, the fear has replaced my normal no pressure attitude. Why? Because at the end of this month I am taking a class from Kim Fields at The Vinery in Madison, WI. Kim Fields is a wonderful bead artist but if you look at her work you will see that a LOT of it deals with superb stringer control. And take a wild guess at what I don’t have

As the class gets closer the fear gets stronger that I will make an idiot of myself in the class so I’ve been practicing. This is my latest attempt.

As you can see, I need a lot of work. This is where the fear comes in. The fear is what makes me be more serious when it comes to practicing my stringer control. Without it I would probably look like a complete fool when I went to my class. With the fear I will keep practicing each time at the torch and hopefully will improve enough by the time of the class that I am able to do justice to Kim’s teaching. In cases like this fear is both my friend and my inspiration.

Wish me luck, and an extra dose of Fear!

Heather is a self-representing artist who creates and blogs out of her home. Her work can be found here and on Ebay and JustBeads under the user name squareonebeads.

Introduction: Heather Hertziger

Hi, my name is Heather Hertziger and I’m a professional pyromaniac We won’t be telling that to my neighbor, Mr. Fire Marshal. He knows I play with fire but he doesn’t know about the maniac part yet and I don’t really think he needs to

I play with polymer clay, art clay silver, and of course glass. I started out as a jewelry designer. I have a bad nickel allergy so can’t wear the costume jewelry sold at the stores so had to make my own. I started to really like it and started selling. As I sold more I started investing in lampwork beads made by other artists because I thought there was no way I could ever afford to make my own beads. Then I discovered polymer clay and could make pretty beads for myself and so I did that for a couple of years.

Then one year at Bead and Button I found a vendor selling the hot head torch, a few rods of glass, and some basic tools for $99 dollars. Knowing nothing about safety or annealing I took my prize home. I started playing with the glass and researching my new love and through lots of trial and error (and NO classes) I learned how to make glass beads. My husband (wonderful man) bought me a kiln and controller and I started selling my beads. I have since graduated to a bobcat torch and while I still play with polymer clay and have added art clay silver to my collection of skills, glass will always be my first love.

I live with my husband of 11 years, my 8 year old German shepherd Summer, 2 bearded dragons, a rosy boa, and a leopard gecko. Pictures of them will appear in later posts as they are the inspiration for a lot of my work.

My husband is a wonderfully supportive man, as I said before, he bought me my kiln a little over a month after I got my hot head. Then later he bought me my bobcat and my oxycon. He said he bought me a bigger torch so I would quit eyeing the oxy/acetylene torch he uses to remove parts from his hobby car but he and I both know he did it because he loves me (pause for a collective awwww here)

I have never had a real formal class in either jewelry design, polymer clay, art clay, or lampwork. That’s why I have the name Square One Beads, everytime I screwed up I had to start again at square one. Not having a real class means that every time I sit at the torch its another lesson. Right now a lot of my work features flowers because two big techniques I need to work on are dot placement and stringer control. I hope as time goes on I will improve in both of these skills.

I currently sell my work on Ebay, JustBeads and my site www.squareonebeads.com. I hope you will check out my work and tell me what you think.