Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Chris Harrison on October 20, 2006, 10:30:27 AM
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Can anyone suggest who makes these?
http://glassgallery.yobunny.org.uk/displayimage.php?pos=-3736
link2 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Contemporary-Tulip-Shaped-Blue-Glass-Vase_W0QQitemZ160030831758QQihZ006QQcategoryZ22657QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem)
They're nothing to write home about - just a few pieces of safety glass glued together - but they are finished quite carefully.
Going by the seller of the second vase, my guess would probably be India.
I'm just curious. I remember seeing something similar (but rather older!) in an Art Deco exhibition a few years ago - at the V&A, or in Basel perhaps?
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Hi,
I don't know who made those vases, but around here we have a few (open to the general public) glass arts-crafts businesses who teach glass slumping, fusing, paperweight making, lamp work and glass laminating. You pay a fee up front for whichever project you choose to do from their list of classes and you pay for your materials etc., when you come in to pick up the finished item.
Anyway; these places have classes for making the same exact type of vases.
I haven't made one of those vases myself, but I did slump this really ugly dish as an experiment to see what effect it would have on the iridescent finish of the glass I used for the project.
http://i11.tinypic.com/2lj2pgo.jpg
The only thing I liked was what the process of slumping this type of glass did to the originally smooth iridescent finish.
http://i11.tinypic.com/2w7il3n.jpg
The piece is now cut up and being made into jewelry items by a friend who is into that craft.
Mike
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I don't think that dish is ugly, I rather like it!
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Thanks, Mike.
Do you know how they're made? Are the pieces of glass fused together? I was assuming that they're stuck with adhesive.
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Hi Chris,
The vases are made from pieces of flat glass. Some are just plain old window\plate glass and some are the types of colored glass one might purchase from a craft\stained glass window supply store. The vase parts are pre-fab, cut to shape with the edges ground smooth. The curvy parts are slumped into shape. They have templates for the vases or you can be original and create your own vase design or some sort of sculpture or whatever and for those you are charged by the piece. They use some type of quick-set clear drying glue\adhesive to put them together.
Josordoni,
If you like that sort of thing maybe you might be interested in slumping glass as a hobby or make things to sell. ebay is loaded with auctions selling supplies, especially the slump molds which come in many shapes and sizes. Of course you will need a kiln or know someone who has one they will let you use. The energy cost to fire up the kiln can be expensive, so you need to squeeze as many projects as possible into it at one time rather than just do one project at a time. Also; the kiln process is time consuming, up to 40 or more hours in some cases, depending on the type of glass you use, how thick and how much. The glass has to be heated up slowly and then it also has to be cooled just as slowly. I wouldn't mind having such a hobby if I could afford it and was sure I could sell the items I made for enough profit to support the hobby.
The piece I made is okay I guess, yet I'm more interested in experimenting than I am in making dishes, vases etc., but I'm stuck using the molds they have on hand which are for those items. I would like to design and make my own molds, but that's yet another expensive, time consuming thing I want, but can't have lol! You can even slump already made pattern glass plates, made by dishware manufacturers. The glass only softens enough to slump\sag down and take on the shape of the mold, but the pressed in pattern is barely effected.
Life just isn't long enough to do or try everything I'm interested in ;-( Mike
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Chris, vases in this style are sold in Au Naturale, which is where mine came from, and various other gift shops. They're not expensive - a couple of pounds each normally. They seem to be stuck together with the sort of adhesive used for fish tanks. I seem to remember mine had a Made in China sticker on it.