Experiments continued

layers of glass held lateraly with steel pins, suspended through the glass,offset in x,y,z axis,creating random patten. The light is trapped at the connector pins as the light penetrates through the glass layers. The structural connectors can be a metaphor for the symbolic elements used in smith's collages, linked by the more immaterial tranparent and/or varing tranlucency layers of the glass, metaphoric of the mental connections made between those symbols. These connectors become clearer as they reach the surface and more diffussed the deeper they are imbedded in the glass. The connectors interupt the view thru the transculent layers to the earth below. The pins are measured by number of layers the drill bit is able to penatrate. The pins are spaced horizontally by a variation of length and width dimensions of my foot, the glass layers a variation of the foot dimension as well in combination with the dimensions afforded by the waste cut offs the recycled glass.

drilling process

(putty donut cancel forces)

pour oil in hole (keep drill bit cool, drill hole)

drilled hole

Jens Comments

email 1

Thanks for posting everything.
Looking forward to seeing your next experiment.
Is it coming together?
The linear composition is stunning. Are you leaving it all glass (acrylic) or are you going to insert some contrast? Metals?
It could very well be that the glass is more than enough.

Think about floor edge, depth, substrate, and direction.

Blog some more and I can comment.

Glass

Glass

from glaza Germanic meaning “amber”,”glare” or “shimmer”
-glass jewelery of the romans resembled amber

Latin- amber is glesum or glaseum

Amber sap from a tree hardened into a solid material

Romans glass- vitrum, root of

French –vitre-for window pane verre for glass

Points of History (glass construction manual)


Orgins of glass
Uncertain
Ash-when smelting copper or clay vessels were fired used to glaze ceramics
5th BC Mesopotamia
4th Egypt
Found in pharaohs temples glass beads 3500 BC
-beginning of intentional glass manufacture
Core wound technique-started rings small figures bowls, vases-from viscous opaque melt

A sand core containing clay was fixed to a rod-dipped into molten glass and turned around its own axis to create a thick “glass tread” that adhered to it
-then rolled into a shape on flat surface the core removed

Oldest blue print (668-626) B.C. Assyrian king Ashurbanipals library

“Take 60 parts sand, 180 parts of ash from marine plants, 5parts chalk

Syrian Blowing iron
200 BC Sidon region
-possible to make thin hollow vessels of a variety of shapes
-blower (gaffer) gathers molten glass at end of 1.5m hollow rod and blows into thin wall vessel

Romans
Glass first used on building envelope at villas of Pompeii and Herculaneum and at public baths
-installed without frame-with bronze of wood surround 300 x 500 30 to 60mm thick
-viscous paste poured into framed table, sprinkled with sand, stretched by drawing it with iron hooks
-it was blue green glass not transparent

The Middle ages
-after Romans-alpine regions-revived by Merovingian Franks
-they made mastos vessels, drinking horns and claw breakers.
-glass was used as these utensils but also in churches, monasteries.
-largest glass works were located in forests or along rivers,
-where lots of wood for energy and potash
-water for cooling and transportation of sand
-glass works moved as forests were depleted, glass making was prohibited in some areas because of this
-coal replaced wood in 18th century replacing forest glassworks.

Blown cylinder sheet glass and crown glass
-most important techniques of the middle ages
-was the process from the Middle Ages to the 19th and 20th century
-flat glass using a blowing iron in a cylinder in the first century A.D.
-crown glass discovered in the 4th century,
-both by Syrian craftsman
-both processes blob of molten glass is drawn of with a blowing iron
-performed into a round shape and blown into a balloon
-continually heated, keep it ductile

-blown glass

-done in Lorraine and Rhine
-balloon was shaped into a cylinder as long and thin walled as possible
-by blowing, swinging and rolling it
-dampened iron pin later diamond, to cut of both ends
-dimensions size of the pane, power of the blowers lungs
-2M X 300MM

Crown Glass

-bubble of glass “tuck on an iron plate on the glass makers pont
-blowing iron cracked of
-hole enlarged to form rim
-bell shaped object reheated and spun to form a disc
-the disc uneven so the glass was cut down into other shapes
-thick center the bulls eye made into smaller specialty panes
-this produced smoother glass having no contact with any surface
-applied until the mid 19th century

-plate glass


-machine made, brilliant glass planes possible in 1913 Emile Foucault of Belgiudrew directlyout of the glass melt
-nozzle made of fired clay immersed in molten glass, which flowed out through a silt, griped with tongs and while being cooled drawn vertically upwards like honey
-Undulations in the drawing process
-lrving Colburn similar method in 1905
-libbey Owens process
-no nozzle, gradually turned over a polished nickel alloy roller
-in a 60m cooling channel and cut to size
2/5m w and 0.6 and 20mm, defined by the speed of the drawing, faster drawing thinner sheets
-glass for the crystal palace could have been produced in 2 days using this method
-Pittsburg plate glass 1928 improved the three processes
-polished plate glass in high production
-1919 max Bicheroux takes vital step for production of cast glass,
-processes went from a spilt up stage process to a continuous rolling mill
-glass went from the melting stages to two cooled rollers to form a glass ribbon, cut then into cooling furnaces on rolling tables
-panes 3 by 6m now possible
-experiments down before but Alastair Pillington, developed float glass process during the 1950s
-basis of glass production today.
(picture) of plate glass


Glass Artists

JAMES CARPENTER





ANN HAMILTON


Glass Manufactures

PAD LAB










Nathan Allen