Easter egg

It had to be a pâte de verre Easter egg this year. Pleasingly eggshell thin - mould made round a real egg and the 'yolk' from an ice cube mould. Turned out rather well.

MA Interim Show

This will probably never happen again - to have my work on the poster and invitation card for an exhibition. It's rather chuffing, I confess - and might be useful for publicity. Invitation designed by Sofia Garcia Noriega who is doing an MA in sustainable product design (the MA comes in many shapes and forms). I'm struggling now with how I display it. I thought in a case resting on a perspex stand, but maybe that's the cop-out solution.

8 operations

These three are in the kiln as I blog: 1) the circles one from 2 weeks ago I had high hopes of and which is way too thick and I am hoping will flatten and flow out a bit more; 2) a failed attempt that I am flattening; 3) a cut-up, already flattened piece that I am re-fusing. Somehow I was all day setting up my kiln. Is it viable? To get a panel, I go through the following:

1. make a mould
2. create a pate de verre bowl
3. pick it up on a bubble and blow it out
4. flatten the bottom on the grinder
5. slump it flat in a kiln
6. cut it into rectangles on a diamond saw
7. make a fibre-board box (hardened and then batt-washed in the kiln)
8. lay out the pieces with glass frit to fuse-fire in the kiln

So preparation stages and 4 hot-working operations. I'm not using my best roundels for these tests, but it's going tohave to be really stunning to justify all this. I don't mind as it's all part of the MA exploration, but it wouldn't be financially sensible.