It is true. Even the best of us get bored. We work and learn and experiment with one medium or one itty piece of said medium (which, like a new love, we are infatuated with - can think of nothing else)but, after a while -things can get stale. It's normal. The beauty is to realize that all these lovely and wonderful and awe inspiring mediums do not have to live in a vacuum. When you get bored with onedo a little of what I like to call Medium Mash-Up.
My latest mashups have been with my own fused glass and silver. You can only fuse so many pendants and plates before you've had enough. For me, that means it's time to move on to another process for a while. After working in silver (mostly rings) and loving itone day I found myself staring longingly at my lonely and unused kiln (I think she was jealous of my new fling, er, medium) - it was then I decided to bring my glass and silver work together and introduce them.
I began taking small bits of my favorite pieces of sheet glass and fusing them into amazing little gems that I could set like stones. Using the knowledge that glass likes to naturally be around an 1/4 thick, I knew that by cutting small squares, they would bead up in the kiln into perfect little flat backed circular cabochons. Who needs boring old precious or semi-precious stones when you can use glass that comes in more colors than you can imagine?
And thus began the mashup. The cost of making the cabs that will eventually be set into all sorts of yummy silver jewelry is pretty minimal - in fact, I just used scraps that I had collected over the year. The end result were stunning, totally handmade bits of custom work that have been extremely satisfying to make and sell.
As a friend once asked me: How can you just jump from one medium to another to another? One day you are spinning wool the other you are working with glass and the next you are doing silver work. Aren't you just an inch deep and a mile wide? Yes and no, I explained.
Maggi Blue is a glass artisan, designer and writer. You can read more about her and her art on her website.
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Medium Mashup: Working with Fused Glass and Silver
