First Fuse!

Last night, I did my first fuse in my Paragon SC2! Right before I started, I was panicking about the firing schedule and thinking the worst. However, seeing the results this morning, has put my worries to rest. I wanted to experiment with encasing organic materials in glass to see what remains were left behind. I originally got the idea whilst working in Novy Bor, Czech Republic, which had a booming business in memorial glass: encasing the ashes of someone in a hand blown object.

During the process of encasing, the calcium in the remains of the ashes survives the heat and turns bright white, making a beautiful pattern within the glass. I really wanted to try this with fusing, so I looked into organic matter that might have calcium(an exo skeleton) and leave a traced behind such as plants and insects . I hoped I would achieve a white outline of pattern of the insect but as you can see from below the results varied.

I was really pleased and impressed with the fern tile a I expected it to burn out like the other flower pieces. Interestingly, the fern was not dried out like the others,  which may be the answer to leaving behind a successful pattern. Next time, I will try a tack fuse: using a lower temperature to avoid burning out so much of the organic matter. Overall, I am very pleased the firing was a success and I have made some discoveries. 🙂