#glass experimentation

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) Fully melted heat map. The black carbon soot marks places that got hit by an initial bushy low flame and never heated up again. At the boundary of solid black to clear again, the clear glass got above 1050˚F and was malleable enough to melt and fall. The grid of the heat map distorted because of the wet clay contracting upward and inward. In some of the photos where the yellow flame sprung out of the blue flame to the left, that was when I was walking around the room clockwise and counter clockwise in front of wide open windows to change the air current and oxygen in the room. Also, a fly committed suicide by flying right into the heat, its body lay motionless among the fallen glass

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) Making of the second matrix, bottom connected by a thin layer of wet clay. As heat bent the rods, it also dried and fired the clay base, contracting upwards and inwards. All the glass from that dried corner contracted on the top inward, causing more rods to come into contact with the flame. 

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) First matrix using thin solid rod embedded in thick wet clay. At first I tried a tiny flame, but that wasn't exciting enough so I bumped it up to a super hot narrow flame. I love how the showed a color gradient n heat from black carbon to clear to red hot

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) I tried the matrix horizontally and it did nothing spectacular except fuse to the brick

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) My second try at a test tube matrix, everything fell over

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) I set up scientific lab glass, which has the same coefficient of expansion as pyrex / borosilicate, in front of a torch elevated by bricks to map the heat of a small super hot flame through hollow vessels. I love how they contracted and exploded out the back

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) I used trash glass ends of "pulled points" which are a byproduct of bubble blowing to make traditional vessels and goblets, held them over a large flame, and let them melt into a pile limited on the bottom by the table and on the top by the flame. This piece maps the heat of the torch and its location and angle that day. Lots of smooth molten glass accumulated on the top near the flame compared to the sparse broken ends and unstable filaments and drips supporting the mass from the bottom. Lots of pieces broke off, it spilt itself in half even though I annealed it, but at least each of the pieces can still sit in their original top-heavy orientation. 

[lightsynthesis]

(ART H 492) Experimentation with Toots Zynsky's "filet de verre" technique of pulling stringers / fiber optic glass filaments and adding to a bubble