Seafans
My Seafans begin as handspun rondels, or plates, 24" - 28" in diameter. Kenny Pieper, of Burnsville, NC, makes them for me. I cut a sort of floral shape out of the rondel, with a sandblaster, by taping both sides and cutting halfway through on one side and then halfway through on the other. Then I carve one entire surface into undulating swirls. If the glass heats up too much (from the sandblaster), it will crack, so I go very slowly. In fact, I work on two at once, a little on one, then a little on the other. Laying out the design and sandblasting take about 20 hours.
I slump each piece five, six, sometimes seven times. The initial slumping is into a bowl-shaped mold made from a wok. Woks make great molds, especially is you don’t want a flat bottom. They are inexpensive, readily available and come in a dozen sizes. I cut off the handles, sandblast the metal inside and out and then apply kiln wash to the inside. Commecial kilnwash often contains CMC, which is not helpful in getting the wash to stick to metal. I make my own out of 70 silica flour/30 kaolin and apply it as a very thick paste. I air dry it over night and then oven dry it to 1000 degrees. It will last through many firings, even though the woks are made of mild steel.
I choose a wok that is about 2 inches smaller than the diameter of the glass and slump it in at a temperature at which the glass just starts to move, avoiding mold marks. If I am fortunate, the glass will ruffle at the edge as it goes in. For the next firing, I turn the “bowl” up-side-down and balance it on a stack of softbrick. The bowl deconstructs into something more interesting. Again, I only heat it up as much as I have to in order to get the glass to move. For the glass batch I use, which anneals at 900 degrees, the slumping temperature rarely exceeds 1050 degrees. The glass is right-side-up again for the third firing, to “open up” the shape. I often close it and open it again, to achieve a good result. When the glass comes out of the last firing, it is done, except for touching up any tiny chips on the edges.
Shoes
I create the glass slippers by first making a three part plaster mold from a real shoe. I pour a wax model and sometimes embellish the original wax shoe with a wax bow or wax roses. The wax shoe is embedded in a plaster/silica mold for glass casting, in the "honeycomb" method I learned from Helen Stokes. First apply a base coat of plaster/silica, then a layer of squares of loosely woven fiberglass, each square dipped in the plaster/silica slurry and applied separately. Cavities in the mold are then loosely filled with larger squares of fiberglass, each dipped in the slurry, and twisted, so that air is trapped in the mold, creating the "honeycomb". Large strips of fiberglass, dipped in the slurry, cover the "honeycomb". Then add another layer of plaster/silica and the mold is done. The was is steamed out and the mold goes into the kiln, drying to 1000 degrees over 24 hours. I cast with lead crystal, which is ruined if it contacts any wax. The glass billets are preheated and added to the hot, dry, clean mold. I cast the glass shoes at 1500 degrees and anneal them over five days.