Moving along to the next clusters and section! I decided to squeeze in a little extra cutting on last week since I knew I would be at the grinder to prep several market pieces and test two new designs.
This project so far has been a dream to work on. It’s a different flow for me and it’s been good medicine to take my time looking through my glass for the “right” piece. When I pick color or glass for any project I don’t rely on visual… I mainly go by feeling and how that piece of glass feels to me. It’s almost as if I’m creating a mood board rather than stained glass piece.
Despite living in jeans and black t-shirts, I love working with color and unusual color combos. In every craft I’ve ever done, color has always played a huge role in my creative process. Whether it’s shawl knitting, wool spinning or dying and weaving, it’s always about how the colors make me feel and the vibe I want when I wear or look at it.
| Mark, Grind, Fit… Repeat
In the pic above, I finished grinding a sliver of hot pink and the clear with black scribbles. I was just starting to fit and grind the clear champagne glass. Taping as I finish grinding pieces helps keep me sane since the pieces shift so easily. You can always grind away the glass but you can’t add it back on.
For this session, I only had 13 pieces I cut out and they took me about 2.5 hours to cut and grind from start to finish. Naturally, I forgot to keep track of my time again – oops! These pieces were fairly easy to grind and fit, most were just a quick pass through my grinder since I try to get my first cuts as close to my traced lines as possible… I’m a massive perfectionist.
| Freshly Ground
I always love seeing the chaos of rough cut glass turn into smooth, form fitted pieces. Creating stained glass has a lot of mental blocks that I climb over… I’m always second guessing my glass choice until I see the piece held up to the light for the first time, I constantly worry the pieces will never fit since they start out so wonky, and then when I start soldering all I can see is a big mess from the flux until it’s cleaned.
Trust the process, always.
Jess Breaks Glass 