What exactly IS fused glass?

Fused glass is a super fun, hands-on art form where colorful pieces of glass are cut, layered and melted together in a kiln at high temperatures to create beautiful one-of-a-kind designs.

There’s so much to love about fused glass. It’s a versatile, vibrant art form with endless creative possibilities. The way in which the glass is layered creates beautiful unique effects and designs. When using transparent colors, the play of light becomes a captivating aspect of fused glass allowing the piece to take on a new look when light shines through it. Or, if you’re like me, I enjoy combining specific opaque colors together to create unique layered patterns, often reminiscent of mid-century modern designs. 

Fused glass offers a unique way to express creativity and bring this accessible, functional form of art into everyday life. Unlike other art mediums, it combines the unpredictability of heat with your personal touch, and is welcoming for all creatives, regardless of your background or experience. It allows you to play with colors, textures, and designs, lending itself to endless possibilities for self-expression. The process is relaxing and meditative and provides a nice break from everyday life. Creating something by hand–especially with glass–feels deeply personal and satisfying. Fused glass is not just about creating art; you’re also creating something you can use, gift, or display in your home!

When first starting out it’s like Christmas morning every time you open the kiln! You never know how your piece is going to turn out, which is absolutely wonderful when you are first learning how to fuse glass. At the same time, many “mistakes” made when fusing glass often lead to unexpected, beautiful results or learning opportunities. In reality there really are no “mistakes” with fused glass, since glass is such a beautiful medium to work with and art is so subjective. As your fused glass education expands you will be able to control the outcome of what you want to happen in the kiln and eventually get consistent results. 

Various forms of glass are used when designing a fused glass art piece. This includes: sheets of colored glass; rods about ¼” in thickness; stringers–thin forms of rods that are 1mm and 2mm in thickness; noodles–thin flat glass (shaped just like linguini pasta!); frit (crushed glass in different grades of thickness–from powder to coarse); dichroic glass–metals applied to the surface that create a shiny/metallic finish. All of these different types of glass can be used together, or intermixed in different ways to create your original art designs. When creating a design you would stack these materials on top of one another and then place them in the kiln–-where all the magic happens!

When you heat glass to specific temperatures, the glass transitions from individual pieces of glass to being bonded with other pieces of glass, forming a single work of art. A fascinating part of glass fusing is understanding that glass behaves differently at different temperatures. There are different firing temperatures such as “tack fusing” vs. “full fusing” that change the look and feel of a fused glass piece and each are desired depending upon the look you are going for with your design.

Small factors such as how the glass is layered, the colors chosen, and the types of glass used make every piece a unique creation.

As mentioned earlier, when I’m creating my work, many of my designs are made by layering sheets of colored opaque glass together. I will typically take my magical kiln up to about 1500º to melt them into one solid, flat layer of glass. If you were to run your fingers across the glass you would not be able to distinguish one sheet of glass from the other since the pieces of glass have become fully fused together. This method works great for all the different types of work I create - from earrings, to pendants to wall panels! I also enjoy using stringers to create crisp lines of color in assorted designs. For these I lay out my pattern as though it were one of my layers of glass and melt them together in the kiln. Frit is also very fun when creating some of my organic designs. For these I generally use coarse frit and lay out enough to form a layer of glass and then melt it together with a sheet of clear glass that encases the frit to create a unique depth to the design. Shown below are some examples of my work in these different styles I've described. If you’d like to see more examples, they can be seen all throughout my website.