Summary

Fused glass dishes were the goal of this interesting workshop at Mirabella led by artist and resident Donna Read.

Breaking glass to make art was a new challenge for the six TAG artists who ventured over to Mirabella for a fused glass workshop last week. The goal: to make four little dishes of fused glass, a time-honored method of making art.  But the process was new to us.  Our guide was artist and Mirabella resident Donna Read.  Donna is skilled in the ways of fused glass, and she’s an excellent teacher.  Donna had everything we needed carefully organized and close at hand.  The ingredients for our little dishes (5 inches square) included 10-inch square pieces, which led straight to the scoring and breaking table.  After a lot of initial hesitation and coaching by Donna, we all started cutting glass.  First came the base plate that gave us four 5 x 5 pieces to work with.  The next layer was more colorful – with lots of choices on how to arrange smaller, beautifully colored pieces.  The final stage was decorative.  Donna gave us lots of options, from little bits of glass about the consistency of rock salt, to strips of colorful trim.  The final step, firing, was in Donna’s hands.  She kindly offered to fire all our productions.  This means putting the trimmed glass into a mold that allows the glass to settle into a nice shape and meld together.  In Donna’s words, “Firing lets the all the molecules get friendly with each other.”  We can’t wait to see the results of our work, which will be coming to us on the 21st of this month at our monthly Tempe Artists Guild meeting.  (The photos associated with this story come from Gabrielle Theilmann, one of the participants in the workshop.)