JJ Brown and Simona Rosasco, artists
Some view works for their messages, for the way light plays on the piece or for sheer beauty or functionality, and others enjoy understanding how a piece is made. At Mica Gallery, the artists who show their work want to share these experiences with viewers.
Some of Penland area glassblower John Geci’s bottles, vases and bowls are made with intricate patterned cane processes and others have dynamic colors brought to life by light. Geci’s Eclipse Bowls are double-walled vessels blown in a hot-glass process. While some are made from a single color of glass, others have a pattern he establishes before blowing the bowl form. Intricate lines are made from canes of colored glass laid in a pattern and rolled into a gather of glass that he then heats in the furnace. “I blow the glass into a form that resembles an American football,” Geci says. “I then heat the top half of the vessel so that, with the right temperature and gravity, I can let the form carefully collapse in on itself. I don’t push it with a tool; rather I just get the heat right so that what becomes the interior mimics the exterior.”
Kit Paulson, artist
Amanda Taylor of Burnsville uses a pate de verre, or paste of glass, process to create her bowls. “I make a flat plaster-silica mold onto which I compact various color combinations of a glass paste consisting of fine crushed glass and a liquid binder,” she says. The compaction of the glass paste, along with a specific firing schedule in the kiln, allows the glass to remain very thin. “Once the pate de verre ‘patty’ has been fired in the kiln, I place it into a shallow ceramic mold in the kiln and fire it to 1,250 F so that the glass ‘patty’ takes on the shape of the mold,” she says. “Once cool, the piece is placed again into a deeper mold and slumped in the kiln.” During this second, and sometimes third slump, she must be present to manipulate the glass.
JJ Brown and Simona Rosasco, of Fyreglas Studio in Bakersville, work in kiln-formed processes as well. Starting with sheet glass, they create kilncast pattern bars. “Pattern bars are built with multiple pieces of colored glass stacked or laid into vermiculite molds,” Brown says. “These molds are then fired at temperatures approaching 1,600 F, creating solid bars of unique and colorful patterns.” A wet diamond saw cuts the glass bars into thin slices essential to the final piece. “The slices are then meticulously worked on a diamond disk grinder to ensure a seamless fit with other pieces, incorporated into flat panels of various shapes and sizes, and fired in the kiln a second time,” he says. “Some are fired a third time into molds to form plates and bowls that are as functional as they are decorative.”
Kit Paulson, of Penland, uses flameworked glass processes for her sculpture. Her imaginative, thought-provoking works are presented as reliquaries, found artifacts and treasures. “Flameworked glass uses a bench top torch to heat glass rods and tubes and then I manipulate them with hand tools to create small glass objects,” Paulson says. The torch reaches temperatures of around 3,500 F. “The rods and tubes (rods for solid work, tubes for hollow work),” she says, “are made from either soda lime glass or borosilicate glass. Various metals and oxides produce colors; for example, black cobalt oxide makes cobalt blue, gold can make ruby reds and purples, and phosphates make an opaline white.”
Mica is located at 37 North Mitchell Avenue, Bakersville. Learn more at MicaGalleryNC.com, and follow on Facebook and Instagram.
