hh mosaics

I have my fuchsia and coral glass. Gorgeous! I know very little about kiln-formed glasswork so I was excited to head to Turtle Bay Glass last weekend to pick up my freshly fired pinks and corals and at the same time to get a studio tour and visit with glass artist Paul Messink.

With an impeccably organized workspace filled with natural light, plenty of technical equipment and tons of glass, Paul is Exhibit A of Art Meets Science. An IT engineer by day, Paul has been working with glass for several years. I met Paul a number of years ago at an art festival in Chicago when I was first starting to exhibit my work. While I was learning the magic of glass and grout, Paul was exploring the magic of glass and heat. Keeping meticulous notes on technique, Paul has explored many different types of fused and kiln-formed glass.

Paul has mastered the technique to realize his current artistic goals which feature enchanting compositions of spare landscape imagery. Trees recede into the distance and fog with amazing perspective achieved using color, size and literal depth. The muted blues or greens or grays encased in glass contribute to the ethereal quality of the compositions. To create these pieces, Paul paints various elements of each composition onto individual layers of glass. The piece he was working on while I was there involved 6 separate layers of glass and involved precision painting of many many tiny branches with a customized paintbrush. Once all painting is complete and cured, the glass layers are fired into a single solid glass piece. The piece is fired at the target heat for a relatively short period of time (a matter of a few hours) but the cooling down or annealing is where it gets tricky. Annealing is the process of cooling glass to return it from liquid to solid state. Without proper annealing, the glass can cool unevenly. This stress can cause the glass to crack or break while in the kiln or leave it brittle, potentially breaking days, months or even years later. Bottomline: you need your kiln-form artist to be equal parts artist and engineer.

I love the contrast between permanence and ephemerality in Paul’s current work: a satisfying, solid block of glass containing a floating, diaphanous world.

See the complete piece “Blue Trees” and other pieces by Paul Messink at Turtle Bay Glass.

The color I’m craving right now is fuchsia. This specific color need hits at the beginning of winter every year and I begin to search for fuchsia in any form. I study the withered vines on my fence that have turned bright pink. I buy pomegranates in bulk without actually eating them. I find the fuchsia element in street art. Sometimes I have to paint things fuchsia.

What I really want is fuchsia glass. There are plenty of plums, violets, mauves and lilacs but blue-toned pinks are rare. Bullseye creates some eye-popping pinks and purples but according to the catalog many of them are considered “strikers” which require firing to achieve their full color. I generally ignore all glass samples marked “pre-fired” but this time as I pored over the sample box, I realized that these are exactly the gorgeous pinks (and corals) I’m craving. So I picked up the phone and met the very helpful Sarah Givens of Bullseye glass. Sarah explained that true (blue) pink is challenging to manufacture owing to its volatile gold-based chemical composition. Many of the purples and pinks are more sensitive to heat so Bullseye avoids applying too much during production of these colors. Given that the majority of their glass is used by kiln-form artists, “strikers” can tolerate additional kiln-work, giving the artist longer working time with the glass and more control over the final color.

But where does that leave the cold/cut glass artist?! Sarah suggested tracking down a local kiln-form artist who might be able to fire the glass for me. So I contacted my friend Paul Messink of Turtle Bay Glass. I met Paul a number of years ago at an art festival in Chicago. I was starting to exhibit my work and he was finding his way in the kiln-formed glass world. We’ve kept in touch. Apparently there’s room in his kiln schedule right now so there are 8 sheets of intense fuchsia and vivid coral en route to his studio. He’ll fire it and I’ll go for a studio visit early in the New Year to see what I can learn about his process and current work. Looking forward to catching up with Paul and to having these lush glass colors.

Alongside hunting for color these days, I’m noticing dried grass and flower forms. I regularly run by a lovely wildflower garden and love watching it change across the growing season. The gardener doesn’t deadhead the flowers and it just struck me how gorgeous these dried forms are now in the late fall. Seeing these forms in neutral colors lets me focus on their complicated geometry and over-the-top repetition. Entangled plants and twisted stems create even more complicated forms and patterns than I noticed at first glance. Looking at images, I also see that I have been overlooking a subtle but striking winter palette of ecru, wheat, sand, tan and dark browns and blacks. These colors are interesting and rich in their own way. It will take some restraint but I’m going to have to experiment with this palette.

Full set of images from photoshoot can be seen here:

Art Mosaics