Warm Glass Dishes

"Warm" Glass, also known as "Fused" Glass, is the oldest method of glass-working techniques, dating back over 4000 years to the Egyptian and Persian and cultures. This process lies between the extremes of glass blowing ("hot" glass) and stained glass ("cold" glass).
The methods used to heat and reshape glass in an oven pre-date glassblowing by many centuries.

For the eighth graders, the process involved layering pieces of cut glass, glass "noodles and stringers" and powdered glass frit onto a chosen background piece of glass in an interesting compostion. The glass was loaded into the kiln and fired to temperatures between 1450 - 1600 degrees, fusing the pieces together. It then has to be cooled slowly to complete the annealing process. The typical cycle takes between 10 to 12 hours to fuse, with another 10 to12 hours to cool. Once fused, the pieces undergo a second firing in order to "slump" the pieces into a mold- this time it is fired it at lower temperature, usually 1200 - 1300 degrees. The entire process can take several days to complete a single work.

Layered glass pre-fuse and post-fuse:

Fused glass on a mold pre-slump and post-slump:

Finished piece in it's "dish" shape:

The eighth graders' completed pieces: