Working the Kiln for some New Earrings

I'm working to build up some inventory for an art festival in May - "Art and Soul of Tulsa" in the Brady Arts district by the Local Art Matters people (more details on that later).

On these earrings, I measure and carve the glass in equal sizes for each pair, then place a pure silver wire in between the two layers of glass. After it is fused then the ear wires attach to that loop. In this method there is no need for special glass epoxy. This is also a special glass that does not burn off the dichroic layer with the heat of the silver wire.

New Kiln is Working Out Great!

For a while it was too cold to run but I'm working in lots of firings. So far, so good! It took some experimenting and some sad days of things not turning out. Some research and questions to local experts helped me iron those out. You can save different firing programs -- most have several steps and speeds to different temperatures that take several hours -- then the cooling periods (annealing). So far, I have three different programs now that are stored in the kiln's computer that are working great!

Photography for the Web

What I'm finding out is that glass jewelry is much more difficult to photograph than pottery. Especially the dichroic glass. The reflections can just kill the colors. I've been trying north light outdoors and I have plans to try the lightbox again to see if that will improve. Still learning. I take many different shots and try different backgrounds, then Photoshop a few for the online store. I'm using a Nikon D60.