Friday, March 20, 2009

More Fun with Bottles


I've been experimenting with more bottles. I like how this Absolut bottle turned out: it's fairly flat except for the bottom, which has curled up in a nice way. Natalia asked if I cut the bottom of a bottle off if the bottle would fuse without the bump. When I get a glass saw in my studio I plan to give it a try. I've been wanting a saw since I first laid eyes on Deb DiSalvo's blog--she creates some of the most beautiful and creative glass work I've ever seen.


This Crown Royal bottle came out nicely, too. There are no dark spots in the glass, this was just a difficult piece to photograph. It's got a nice shape, and I think it will be nice to add some rubber bumpers on the bottom so it won't mark up a table. It might make a nice clock, like Journeys and Adventures suggested, and I might try that with the next bottle shaped like this.

Artist Victoria O'Neill suggested hanging a bottle in a window, and NothingLikeit asked whether I could put some small pieces of colored glass inside the bottle before I flatten it. I thought that pretty-ing one up for a window decoration sounded like fun, but I didn't want to risk mixing different kinds of glass. (Different kinds of glass expand at different rates, so putting glass with unknown expansion rates togther means that at best the glass will likely be unstable, and could shatter at any time. So I put a ton of pink/purple mica inside a bottle, put it in the kiln to flatten, and got this surprise.


It looks like sparkly sand, not at all pink or purple, and much more clear areas than I expected. It's nice, though, and reminds me of a day at the beach.