I was accepted into a winery art show over June 10 & 11. My inventory is a little low and what I would consider stale. While the beads from last year were diverse and unique, my desire to branch outside of beads has been growing.
Two products have risen to the top of my idea pool, gravity pendants and sculptural mushrooms. If you are thinking, "Huh, that's a little random," I would agree. The gravity pendants offer a new world of glass control and the mushrooms are theraputic to make. (And, they came after a mistake making glass buttons.)
If you visit many glass artists' studios, you will see a familiar object.... chip controlled kilns. This may come in the shape of a PC or simple digitry. My studio doesn't have this because it is on my project list to build sometime. This weekend proved why I need one.
I was making a number of gravity drop pendants and started to get hungry. I headed inside and one of my housemates gave the remotes for the entertainment center. Being a holiday weekend, there were many day-long specials. For our viewing enjoyment, we opted to watch the Discovery Channel and their back-to-back episodes of Deadliest Catch. If you haven't seen this program, it is a reality show covering the trials of the Alaskan crab fishermen. WARNING: This program is addictive and will make you lose track of time.
It all happened over a 3-hour period. My kiln temperature crept around 200 degrees in that time. After prying myself from the show, the temperature gauge was hovering around 1150 - 1200 degrees. This temperature is a point where glass begins soften. I lost numerous pieces that will be sacrificed to the cold-working gods in the future.
Moral of the Story: If you plan to leave the kiln for an extended period of time, make sure to have a digitally controlled kiln or begin ramping down the kiln for the day.
