BEHIND

I have been getting my clothes dirty with clay, plaster, wax, glass and sweat for over a decade. Currently this is happening in Christchurch NZ in my home studio. It is NOT as tidy and clean as the pictures would like to pretend. In fact, Health and Safety would probably get the red sticker book out, if they saw me in the process of getting plaster of the cast glass.
The last 5 years has been focused on casting glass. It is a process of making a clay or wax model, casting a plaster/silica mould around it - leaving an opening to dig or steam out the model and finally melting glass at about 820 degrees C into the hollow of this plaster mould to take the form of the model. Depending on the thickness of the glass, it can take weeks to cool it down to room temperature, the glass needs annealing, cooling down slow to make sure no stress from uneven temperature makes it crack.