A vitreous uprising

Fusing glass is a chemistry experiment. Glass fusers pay careful attention to “glass compatibility” and the “coefficient of expansion.” Sometimes we push the limits to see what happens— it makes opening the kiln very exciting! I have made fused glass coasters for years, often combining small pieces of different colors and textures of glass to make interesting patterns. A number of years ago, while living in New Jersey, I decided to see what happened if I placed beach sand between pieces of glass. I used sand I had scooped up at the Jersey shore and, once I figured out a few technique tricks, I had great success. Earlier this summer, I was at a beach at Scheveningen in the Netherlands where my father’s family immigrated from in the 1950’s. I took a small bit of sand home and that fuse resulted in a slight doming of the top layer of the coasters. A few weeks ago, a client asked me to make him some coasters with sand he brought in. When I took it out of the bag to sandwich (ha ha) it between the glass layers, it felt very coarse. I broke up the chunks but the texture stayed the same, feeling almost like crushed coral. I did a test fire and this photo shows what came out of the kiln! I recently visited an exhibit on sand at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA. Interestingly, it was created by two Dutch artists. There is a surprising amount of variation in something that seems so common. While these pieces are definitely not going to be coasters, they may end up becoming hanging pieces. Each will truly be one-of-a-kind pieces of art with a fun story.