ghostykins:sixpenceee:This is a glass ”murrine” made by artist Loren Stump. Each color in the piece

ghostykins:sixpenceee:This is a glass ”murrine” made by artist Loren Stump. Each color in the piece was carefully layered to create this “loaf” which was then sliced. Each slice sold for $5000.Murrini, specifically portrait murrini like the above, is a very cool process and it takes forever. It’s like glass pointillism. First, the artist pulls what are known as “stringers” from as many shades of different colors that they need, by melting a hunk of color and stretching it out as long as possible. Stringers are usually about as thick as a nylon guitar string, or sometimes as thin as cat whiskers.Then, once the artist has pulled as many strings as they need (which can be THOUSANDS especially like in the picture above) they will take some sort of mold, usually cast out of some sort of kiln-safe plaster, and place each string into the mold, in order, working from the bottom up, until a picture is formed. After the portrait is set in the mold, it is treated in the kiln for several hours, depending on the size of the piece, and the heat is brought up slowly to fuse the strings together.THEN, a solid rod is placed at the top, with a molten glass “post” acting as the glue between the rod and the portrait. Sometimes the glass will slide right out of the mold, but one time my teacher actually had to BREAK the mold off of her piece, heat it quickly, and brush off any debris, which was a really tedious thing to watch.Then, the glass is heated in what is known as a “glory hole” (hotter than the kiln but not as hot as the furnace). It’s basically a hole in the wall that is so bright it hurts to look at. This hole is used often as the glass constantly has to have its internal temperature stabilized or else it will crack. The temperature has to remain the same throughout the middle also, or else it will not pull evenly.The portrait is (sometimes) wrapped in a layer of clear glass at this point. A second rod is taken, with a clear glass post, and it is stuck onto the open end of the portrait. Both rods are pulled apart to stretch the portrait as far as it can without messing up the portrait. According to the chunk of clear glass on the right side of the picture, you can see where it was pulled and distorted. Then, the portrait is removed from the pipes and placed back in the kiln, where the heat is gradually taken down to room temperature over the course of about a day.Finally, the piece is taken into the cold shop, where it is grinded down and cut (that arched window shape in the photo has been polished to look crisp). The image is its clearest in the center, and will naturally become more distorted at the ends. Often, the end bits are sold for cheaper than the “pure” slices.This is a closeup set of “component pieces” of the picture above. The stringers on the final piece were actually not all set in one go, she made individual faces and shapes and THEN put them together (so the mold/kiln/ pulling process had to be repeated numerous times). Note the size difference in one face vs the identical face next to it — the smaller one probably came from the end and the larger one from the center.And here are some other examples:(that is the Lord’s Prayer in TINY letters on a TINY pendant and is 100% glasss and if you don’t think that’s the coolest then get outta my face). Done by Richard Marquis.This is a self portrait done by an artist named Suzanne Peck, at the glass studio I studied at ! This was the one I witnessed in person. The glass here is not orange in color, it is actually black and greyscale. It is just very hot.Here is what the stringers look like. In this photo, Peck had decided to roll a fresh layer of strings on top of the mass that she already had on the pipe.Peck herself said that the time it took her to sit and place the strings was about the length of “several seasons of House on Netflix”. The kiln/pulling process for this one was done in one go, but the piece is still pretty massive.Sorry that was so long-winded, but I wanted to emphasize how unbelievable the amount of work that goes into these pieces actually is. I have only attempted portrait murrini once, and it was sloppy and simple. I still cannot fully comprehend how artists can put the amount of detail into works like the ones pictured. The Madonna one probably took a year to make, if not longer. -- source link

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