Dark Highway – fused glass wall piece
October 25, 2016
“Dark Highway” is a wall piece that I made relatively recently. The disk is about 20″ in diameter and is an abstract image of a truck coming out of the darkness toward the viewer. “Dark Highway” will be mounted with small silver edge clips that will hold the piece to the wall.
Inspiration
“Dark Highway” was inspired by a rusty truck on the side of a field as I was driving to Tucson. I didn’t take the time to stop a take a picture of the truck, which I truly regretted later. Instead I looked around in Google Images – a very handy resource for visual artists – and found half a dozen images of rusty trucks that were similar enough to work from. I printed out all of those images and laid them around my worktable as I was working on the piece.
“Dark Highway” was inspired by a rusty truck on the side of a field as I was driving to Tucson. I didn’t take the time to stop a take a picture of the truck, which I truly regretted later. Instead I looked around in Google Images – a very handy resource for visual artists – and found half a dozen images of rusty trucks that were similar enough to work from. I printed out all of those images and laid them around my worktable as I was working on the piece.
Process
The swirly black part on the left of the disk actually covers the entire bottom layer of glass. I sprinkled black powder in a light coating all over the glass. I was working with clear textured glass that held the powder nicely in the texture. Then I got out a spray bottle filled with water and totally soaked the powder. I created the open areas and the heavier dark areas by selectively pushing the powder around with the water.
The swirly black part on the left of the disk actually covers the entire bottom layer of glass. I sprinkled black powder in a light coating all over the glass. I was working with clear textured glass that held the powder nicely in the texture. Then I got out a spray bottle filled with water and totally soaked the powder. I created the open areas and the heavier dark areas by selectively pushing the powder around with the water.
Next, I started working on the top layer of glass. I started off by adding the blue powder to the top edge, as a nod to blue sky at twilight. I wanted part of the top layer to be open to show off the bottom layer, so I decided to section off the right portion and apply the rusty-colored powders there. Again, I used a spray bottle to soak the powders and push them around to run into each other. After I got a layer of wet powder that I liked, I started making marks in the powders with various tools. I hinted at the shape of the hood of the truck, the front grill, and headlights.
Once both layers of glass came out of the kiln, I placed the two layers together and rotated the glass until I found an arrangement I found pleasing, and added the two black stringers. Then I fused the top and bottom layers together. At this point, I started playing with the surface. I mixed powders with gel medium and added the texture to the blue section and the red section beyond the stringer. I added more powder in specific areas, along with the coarse black frit, which at the bottom was a nod to a nubby truck tire. After a last cool firing to set all of that, I called “Dark Highway” done.
