Category: my work

First Glass Show

Dave WagenknechtLeave a comment

For July’s First Friday, I had my first glass showing. It was part of student show at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, PA. Some details of it’s creation are in another post.

Me

The grouping on the light table is the main piece. I also showed some individual bowls., including two that were created with home-made coloring.

Me-Detail3

It was a fantastic experience. The works were created in a class meant to create work for display. My fellow students Lee and April also created great work.

Lee

Lee Riley

April

April Vergara

The Color of Light – Evolved

Dave Wagenknecht1 Comment

Small Group

Background

The Color of Light – Evolved is a project meant for initial display at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It will be shown starting July 6th, 2018.

This work shows the evolution of design, process, and skill over the several months of its creation. The bowls are displayed on a custom mounted commercially available LED lighting panel.

Design

The original intent of this project was to have overlapping bowls to create a filter effect to show the combination of colors when lit from below.

Bowls-Concept-InsertSide view of concept

Color Overlap InsertTop view of color mixing – concept

By color theory, the colors would combine to produce the secondary colors. Blue plus green should create cyan, green plus red should create yellow, and red plus blue should create magenta. And all three should combine to produce white. (The software used to render this, misrenders this as an off grey. In retrospect, this should have been seen as an omen.) Note that these the colors are referenced to the framework of light not pigments.  

RGB_illumination

Colored light mixing – (By en:User:Bb3cxv [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)

In practice, the colors did not combine as expected. During a recent summer intensive class,  I’ve had the good fortune to consult with the Dr. Jane Cook, the Chief Scientist at the Corning Museum of Glass. She advised that the this should, of course, work. Her advice was to do more experimentation with various shades of the colors at various densities. This will be a future iteration of this project.

The final project creates the feeling of of the combined colors by featuring bowls in variants of the primary and secondary colors. It also shows the evolution and occasional devolution of techniques and tools used to create the bowls.

Process

The bowls in this project are based on a technique learned from Mark Matthews in his “Graphic and Color Systems in Glass” class. The bowls are made from several gathers of glass on a solid punty. Color is applied to the end and pressed into the gather with a stainless steel poker. After the color is applied, the gather is opened with a steam stick inserted into the channel where the color was pressed in. It is then expanded into the final form by the centrifugal force of spinning the punty in the reheating furnace and working with jacks. It is cracked off then annealed.

Photo May 18, 21 40 23A completed bowl on the punty

The stainless steel poker to apply the color and the steam stick were custom made for the purpose. The steam stick, like shaping blocks, is made of water-soaked cherry wood.

Color Poker and Steam Stick

photo-may-09-20-41-35.jpg

Color Application (lower) and Poking (upper) Visualization 

Creation

Portions of this project were created at the Banana Factory, The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, and my home in York, Pennsylvania.

Thanks

The following have inspired, influenced, or assisted with the project in some way. I’m grateful that they have shared their knowledge and skill.
Mark Matthews

Chad Balster

Mary Cash

Jane Cook

 Dennis Gardner

April Vergara

Anna Riley

Tim Spurchise

Contact

Website: https://www.davewagenknecht.com

Email: dave@davewagenknecht.com