This is the final part of a multi-stage project. Start at Part 1 if you’d like to understand the full creation of this piece from start to finish!

Opening a Window

Before assembling the finished desert scene layers, I wanted to build one more optional layer that could sit in front of them all and emphasize the voyeuristic feeling of peeking through a window to another world.

I cut a square the same size as the background layer from a sheet of a warm, intensely yellow glass, and carved a circle into its center.

If you’re interested in learning how I make cutouts like this one, this post documents the process.

I fused this cutout layer just enough to soften its edges.

Holding it above the other layers created a sharp contrast between the scene and reality, adding a window-like effect.

Assembling the Layers

Finding a Frame

I used a frame that was more than deep enough to contain all the glass layers so that I’d be able to nest them inside along with spacers fitted in between each.

I made sure to obtain a frame before starting any of the glasswork for this project so that I could design the glass layers to the exact size that would fit them snugly within the frame.

It was surprisingly difficult to find a clean, white frame that was deep enough and small enough for this project (small being key because my kiln floor is only 7x7”), so for future dioramas I plan on building my own. Fortunately, I recently took a course at the Florida School of Woodwork that should make that entirely doable.

Attaching the Spacers

These clear, self-adhesive spacers enabled me to situate the fused glass layers within the frame at different depths so that the background was farther away from the viewer than the foreground, thus building upon the sense of realistic perspective I’d already begun to establish by varying the texture intensity from layer to layer.

I attached different sized spacers to each layer to achieve different purposes:

• Very thin spacers bring the foreground a tiny bit closer to the viewer than the layer behind it.

• Very thick spacers bring the midground much closer to the viewer than the layer behind it.

• Moderately thick spacers prevent the frame’s metal backer tabs from pressing directly into the background and potentially cracking the glass.

I laid the foreground in first, surrounded by layers of precisely cut spacers. These spacers created a flat, stable surface that the midground could then be laid atop, followed by the background. Finally, I bent the frame’s backer tabs down on the background’s spacers to secure it all in place.

Note that the frame came inset with black metal backer tabs, but they weren’t at the depth I needed, so I left them unused and added in another set myself.

Also note that the yellow window layer isn’t shown here because I wanted to photograph the finished piece both with and without it, which meant I had to perform this framing process twice. I only photographed the session without the window layer.

Filling a Gap

Although I sized each fused glass layer to fit snugly into the frame, while inlaying them I noticed that the foreground sat slightly askew because its bottom wasn’t perfectly straight.

I had to grind ~2mm off the offending edge to correct this, and then accordingly had to do the same to the other glass layers to maintain the design’s cohesiveness. This left a slight space between the glass layers and the top of the frame which I stop gapped with the spacers shown here.

To avoid this mistake in future dioramas, I’ll leave each layer slightly larger than needed until I’m ready to frame them all together, and will then adjust their edges one by one as they’re inlaid.

Since I consistently padded all gaps with spacers during the framing process, the final result is a securely positioned, three-dimensional art piece that can be tilted or flipped in any direction without the layers falling, slipping, or rattling.

I’m particularly happy with the stableness of this piece because I believe it’s vital to create sturdy, reliable pieces that customers can display in their homes without worry of their easily breaking.

The Finished Piece

Viewed With the Window Layer

I think the window layer adds a playful punch to the piece, and creates a tunnel-like, narrowed focus that pushes the background layer farther away in the viewer’s eye.

Ultimately, I prefer the piece without the window layer, but I’d like the option to easily install and remove it at a whim.

Unfortunately, with the current structure this isn’t possible without removing all the layers, altering their spacer setup, and then re-inlaying them all, which is extremely tedious and comes with the awful risk of breaking a layer.

Since I already plan to construct my own frames for future dioramas, I may also consider whether there’s a way I can do so that would allow the front layer to be easily slid in or out depending on the viewer’s preference.

Viewed Without the Window Layer

One of the aspects I enjoy most about this piece is its convenient versatility!

This piece can be displayed on a flat surface or easily hung on the wall with just a single nail.

It also doesn’t do badly in backlight!

Pieces made entirely from opalescent glass can look overly dark when backlit in a window, but the cream background layer of this piece allows enough light through to keep it fairly well illuminated.

Video Recap

Watch a quick video from The Thought Gallery summarizing the fusing techniques used to create this piece and sharing its finished look!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

This is the third part of a multi-stage project. Start at Part 1 if you’d like to understand the full creation of this piece from start to finish!

Building the Foreground Layer

Coordinating Greens

I kicked off this layer with test samples of various green sheet glasses and stringers to see which color combos, sizes, and placements would work best for the interesting cacti textures that I wanted to serve as the focal point of this layer.

Whenever I perform a test sample, I take before and after photos and also draw a correlating sketch of the setup to note the exact glasses, sizing, spacing, etc. that were used.

Sometimes glasses undergo significant shifts in color and/or position during firing, and it can be surprisingly difficult to remember what was what, especially if many different types were involved. Having documentation keeps multi-stage projects moving smoothly, and also allows me to easily pick up where I left off if I have to suddenly step away from a project to work on a commission, attend a workshop, or see to some other immediate priority.

I also store all the past samples I’ve created so that they can be referenced during future projects. This way I have a quick-reference guide to consult whenever I’m picking out the color palette of a new piece.

I wanted the green-on-green combos of the cacti to contrast enough to make their texture visible at a short distance, so I used the post-firing samples to rule out color pairings that were too highly similar.

Predictably, the stringer bits overhanging the topsides of the samples shifted significantly. To use that positioning, I’d have to either:

• Lengthen the stringer portions sitting on the glass

• Use something to support the overhangs (e.g. fiber paper).

Sprouting Spikes

Rather than try to manipulate glue-dabbed ends of the Prickly Pear and Saguaro Cacti spikes into position while they rolled around underneath the sheet glass segments, I thought it would be easier to glue them to the cacti topsides, and then place the cacti in the kiln spike-sides-down once the glue dried.

To do this while following the exact spike placement of the pattern, I mirrored the cacti in my digital design and reprinted them to use as a template while gluing on their spikes (the fact that this took under a minute is just one of infinite reasons I’m SO glad to have transitioned away from hand-drawing patterns).

I didn’t have to mirror the pattern of the Barrel Cacti since their spikes could be glued directly to their topsides. However, I did have to find a way to position the spikes in precisely curved lines to give an illusion of curvature.

Whenever I need to arrange small bits along exact paths, I print out the pattern, cut along the path, and then gently nudge the bits into place with the pattern’s edge.

In this case, I cut along the outermost curved spike line of the Barrel Cactus pattern, and then glued the correlating spikes on to the glass surface in a rough line. While the glue was still wet, I laid the pattern on the glass and pushed the bits with its edge so they conformed to its exact curvature.

Afterward, I cut along the next line of spikes and repeated the process, continuing until all spikes were in formation.

Drifting & Rejoining

Once their details were added, I tack-fused the cacti just enough to hold their bits together without softening their edges.

Even though I would later have to conduct a second firing to attach them to the land segment, I chose to perform this initial firing in case any of the cacti fused out of place. This way, I could fix or redo them individually instead of scrapping all of them along with the land mass.

Firing the cacti separately from the land turned out to be a blessing because the Saguaro arms shifted away from the vertical body segment during the fuse! This shift was likely due to the fact that I’d placed fairly large dollops of glue at the junctures where the arms abutted the body.

Though I was still liberally using glue during this project, I’ve since learned that it’s not really a fuser’s friend (no, not even the kind made specifically for use in-kiln). As it boils off during firing, glue can actually shift the pieces it’s touching, having the exact opposite of the intended effect, as this Saguaro Cactus failure exemplifies.

In my opinion, the use of glue should be avoided during fusing, and if it absolutely must be used, it should be in the smallest amount possible to minimize the movement created as it evaporates.

Though I hadn’t yet learned that glue was probably not aiding this situation, I had learned that sticking a small bit of confetti underneath two pieces of glass can help ensure they don’t separate during firing. That’s the insurance I applied in my setup for the Saguaro Cactus’s second tack-firing, during which it would be fused to the land mass along with the other cacti.

In preparation for this fuse, I also applied a lesson I’d learned while creating the midground layer in Part 2 of this project: fiber paper is a convenient and efficient way to support any portion of glass you want to ‘float’ in front of the layers behind it.

In this case, I used one layer of 1/8” fiber paper to prop up the overhanging portions of the Prickly Pear, Saguaro, and large Barrel Cacti.

Note that I positioned the fiber paper just a hair’s breadth away from the land mass segment so their edges wouldn’t come into contact while fusing and leave the land with a rough imprint from the paper.

Emphasizing Differences

I wasn’t expecting the Saguaro Cactus to warp around the stringers quite as much as it did, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by the resulting bumpy look. It enhances the rough, prickly texture, and its uniqueness helps to differentiate the foreground layer from the midground layer.

Further differentiating the foreground from the midground are the slight alterations in streakiness and color intensity between the two light brown land segments. Although I used the same light brown opalescent glass sheet for both layers’ land, I used one side of the sheet for the midground, and the other side for the foreground, resulting in minor differences between the two.

Bullseye glass sheets have a unique in “rolled” texture imparted by their manufacturing process.

This texture is often more intense on one side of the glass than the other, as was the case here. I hoped that using alternate sides for the foreground and midground layers would create slight contrast between the two, and really make the foreground ‘pop’ (which it most definitely did!).

The Full Stack

I was thrilled to finally put all three layers of this piece together and see them play off each other! Photographs don’t quite do it justice, but the progressive softening of the edges from foreground to background builds a beautifully in-depth space that magnetically pulls the viewer in.

In the next (and final) part of this project, I’ll add spacers between the various layers that will truly level this piece up from a 3-dimensional scene to a 3-dimensional world, and I’ll cleanly wrap it all up in a boxy frame.

Video Recap

See a short summary of how the foreground layer of this desert diorama was made!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

Building the Midground Layer

Controlling For Bubbles

The midground layer of this piece actually consists of two glass layers fused into one: a dark brown piece depicting a mountain range in the distance, and a light brown piece depicting midland between the mountains and the viewer.

Although visually there’s no reason that the dark brown mountainscape can’t just be a single piece, the cuts dividing it into three serve a very important function.

As glass melts within a kiln, its perimeter tends to soften first since it’s closest to the heating coils along the sides of the kiln.

So in this case, the outer edges of the light brown piece will melt down on to the dark brown piece first, potentially leaving air trapped in the center between the two pieces. The cuts in the dark brown piece provide a route for the air to escape by to prevent it from forming a bubble, which would likely create a protruding bump that would be visible in the light brown piece post-firing.

I set these pieces aside for the moment without firing them, and proceeded to build tiny cacti to sprinkle across the landscape.

Maintaining Cacti Posture

I wanted the Saguaro cactus to be taller than its dark brown mountain backdrop, but to remain straight so that it would realistically stand in front of the mountains instead of melting into them. To accomplish this, I needed to ensure that the portion of the cactus overhanging the land layers was supported so that it remained straight throughout the fuse.

I decided to create a support structure out of stacked glass, with the idea being that when heated to a light contour fuse, the bottom layers of the cactus would keep the top layer supported without melting enough to droop into one another or flattening out and becoming visible from the front. Unfortunately, I overlooked the fact that there was a MUCH simpler, cleaner, and all-round better way to go about this, as will be described shortly.

You can tell by the rough edges of the third cacti layer in the photos here that it was glued on after the first two had already been tack fused together because apparently, I can’t count.

I tack fused all the cacti before gluing them to the land in order to minimize chances that any of the layers would slide apart while fusing to the ones beneath.

The two other smaller cacti I’d also built with stacked layers ended up being too tiny to balance nicely on the edge even with their added supports, so I ended up grinding off their extra layers and gluing them in place slightly lower than my original pattern called for.

Once the cacti were in place, I fired the entire piece to a contour fuse.

Note that this contour fuse was much less intense than the full fuse I’d used to fire the background sky layer, because I wanted each layer to retain progressively more texture as they neared the viewer’s eye.

If you’re an experienced fuser, you probably saw this tragedy coming.

The stacked layers of the Saguaro cactus didn’t stay straight as I intended, but instead slid off of each other as they melted, causing the cactus to lean to the right.

Although sort of pleasantly Dalí-esque, this wasn’t quite the look I was going for.

I was frustrated to have to completely redo this layer, but it was a valuable learning opportunity to observe how thinly-shaped glass behaves when fused in a stacked manner.

Swapping Supports

Upon removing my sadly warped scene from the kiln, I immediately knew what I should have used to support the cactus in the first place: fiber paper!

Fiber paper is a heat-resistant material made from tightly woven alumina-silica threads that will not stick to glass or kiln shelves.

Two of the most convenient aspects of fiber paper are that it comes in several different thicknesses, from paper-thin up to 1/4”, and it can be easily cut and stacked to achieve any shape or height required.

In this case, two layers of 1/8” paper laid the perfect foundation to keep my cactus straight.

Though it’s incredibly useful, it’s important to note that fiber paper leaves a noticeable texture on the surface of glass after firing (see the backside of the Saguaro cactus in the photo below).

Since I didn’t want this texture to be visible anywhere on the finished piece, I kept the fiber paper from touching the glass’s front surfaces by:

• Using a bit of glass to support the very small area between the dark brown mountain range and the cactus body

• Leaving a tiny gap between the fiber paper and the edge of the mountain range

Achieving Depth

The fiber paper support technique showed vastly improved results compared to my first attempt. In this version, the top half of the Saguaro cactus floats above the landscape behind it, creating the perspective-building layers I hoped for.

When the midground layer is placed against the background layer created earlier, the depth of this piece really starts to shine!

This is an encouraging indication that after the foreground layer is created along with additional spacer-induced depth, my three-dimensional diorama concept will successfully be brought to fruition.

Video Recap

Watch a quick overview of this desert diorama layer’s creation process!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

This project was meant as a glass artist’s take on the diorama, which to me, is a window into another place or time—a world within a world. As an ultimate endpoint, I envisioned an entire wall hung with dozens of little diorama boxes, each one depicting a slice of scenery with a story all its own, taking the viewer on a seemingly endless voyeuristic journey.

Of course, I had to test out this idealistic concept with just a single scene.

I based this diorama’s design on the Nevada desert because that landscape is the most otherworldly one I’ve ever personally witnessed.

I took a trip there with my dad several years ago, and our drives through the winding canyons provided some of the most striking imagery I’m sure I’ll ever see. The vivid red rock walls with their sharply jutting plateaus are an immensely powerful presence, especially when juxtaposed with the miles and miles of unblemished flat land surrounding them. Even the flora is awe-inspiring, with many of the cacti towering tens of feet above my head (being born and raised in the northeast, I’d naively always imagined them to be around 6’ at the tallest—which is so wrong!), while others are covered with formidable spikes nearing the length of chopsticks.

All in all, a very appropriate place to create a permanent peek into.

Spacing Things Out

What sets a diorama apart from a painting, or a traditional stained glass panel, or any other flat piece of art, is its depth, which is achieved through a shoebox-like setup with 3D objects placed inside. Recreating such depth poses an obvious challenge for the glass artist, since our go-to medium is thin sheets of glass attached in a 2D manner. However, I wondered whether a look of depth could be achieved by stacking together flat layers of fused glass and spacers?

My idea (as crudely conceptualized in the design sketch above) was to create a three-dimensional desert scene within a thick frame by fusing one layer of glass per scenery distance and following each with a spacer block as follows:

• Layer 1: Scenery furthest from the eye (the background layer)

• Layer 2: Wide spacer block

• Layer 3: Scenery closer to the eye (the midground layer)

• Layer 4: Medium spacer block

• Layer 5: Scenery nearest the eye (the foreground layer)

• Layer 6: Thin spacer block

• Layer 7: A circular cutout giving a voyeuristic, window-like view into the layers behind

We observe the most detail in the objects closest to us.

As added realism, I planned to mimic this by fusing the background layer at a high temperature to give it the least amount of texture, and the foreground layer at a low temperature to give it the most amount of texture.

Building the Background Layer

Test Run

As always with new concepts, I made test samples to confirm the glass colors and firing schedules that would be used in the final piece. I constructed this background layer sample with scraps of cream-colored glass (which I planned to use for the sky), white glass (which I planned to use for the clouds), red glass (which I planned to use for the sun), and orange stringers (which I planned to use for the sun rays).

I was specifically looking to answer 3 questions:

1. How will the color palette look after a full fuse? Certain glasses undergo color shifts at full fuse temperatures, which can be a nasty surprise if unexpected.

2. How far apart should the sun rays be spaced? At full fuse schedules, stringers can flatten out to ~double their original width, so if they’re placed too close together, they may merge into one another.

3. Will a typical COE 90 full fuse firing schedule cause all the different glasses used to melt down to the same consistency? Opaque white glass requires a higher temperature/longer max. temperature hold time to fully fuse than most other colors. Since I wanted as little texture in this layer as possible, I wanted to be sure all colors would melt down fully.

As I suspected, even though I used a typical COE 90 full fuse firing schedule, the white glass didn’t soften into the cream glass as much as the other glasses did (as shown by the shallow indents around the sides of the white triangle in the post-fused sample). I increased the schedule’s max. temperature hold time accordingly, and re-fired the sample at this new schedule.

This amended schedule fused everything down to an even flat surface while not overly rounding out and expanding the shapes.

It also confirmed that leaving ~2mm gaps between stringers resulted in the ideal spacing, and that the colors would work well together (note how the sun scrap and stringer segments appeared to be nearly the same color pre-firing, but the stringers lightened significantly to appear much more orange-y post-firing).

Sky Forming

Empowered with the information gleaned from the test sample, I cut and ground each design element to shape and glued them on to the cream-colored base glass.

Here’s where I hope my design plan becomes more clear. After gluing down the background layer design elements, I placed the midground layer pattern on top to check whether the two layers would line up correctly (which they did). Now, if you imagine that there’s a spacer situated between these two layers so that the midground layer pattern is raised slightly off of the background layer, you’ll understand the three-dimensional effect this project aims to achieve.

Thinking the background layer was good to go, I popped it into the kiln face-down to maintain as much sharpness of shapes as possible (that fact will be important in a minute) for a full fuse.

Unfortunately, it didn’t come out quite as flawless as I’d hoped.

The segments of my perfect stringer ring were strewn chaotically! And the topmost two clouds were atilt! I wish I could blame this tragedy on kiln demons, but alas, my own stupidity was at fault.

In my excitement over moving on to the next phase of this novel project, I’d gone right to a full face-down fuse without tack fusing the design elements face-up first.

Typically, this isn’t an incredibly risky strategy, as the weight of the base layer of glass tends to keep the elements below in place as they fuse down, but it becomes dangerous when:

1. All the design elements are not of the same height. The sun ray stringers were about half the height of the sun middle and clouds, so I suspect that since the sun middle was taller, it began pressing into the cream base layer before the stringers fully adhered, causing them to shift. They may also have just fully fallen off of the base layer as their glue disintegrated, landing slightly out of place.

2. Design elements are placed very near the edges. The edges tend to condense/expand the most during fusing, creating the most potential for movement, so I suspect that the top clouds ended up shifting since they were very near the base layer edge.

If just a couple stringers had been affected, I may have attempted to carefully grind away the offending segments using a Dremel tool, replace them, and re-fire the piece, but since it was a bunch of stringers and the clouds were also askew, it was too much for me to attempt to salvage.

Sadly, I re-made the piece from scratch (with the key design modification of expanding the perimeter of the layer by .0125” to give the clouds extra buffer from the edge and its potential shifting during fusing).

With a beautiful tack fuse ensuring all my hard work would stay in place this time, I confidently moved on to the full fuse phase….

…and you may not believe this, but my stupidity struck again!!! (truly, it knows no bounds)

Do those indents around the clouds look familiar? I recognized them right away from the initial test sample I fired, where I specifically noted to my stupid-self that this layer would have to be fused at a more intense firing schedule than usual, due to the white glass taking longer to fully melt. I’d accidentally used the wrong full fuse schedule—doi!

My kiln can be programmed to save up to 4 different firing schedules, so I can quickly start it without having to set the temps and times of every single step. Although this is normally a time-saving blessing, it can be a curse if I’m not paying very close attention when I start it up.

The below comparison of the initial background layer attempt to this second attempt shows the marked difference in indentation between the two.

Fortunately, this mistake didn’t require me to start from scratch, as I was able to simply re-fire the piece at the more intense full fuse schedule I’d used on my test sample.

Ta-da! After grinding the edges to a square, it fit my intended pattern just right.

Video Recap

Watch a brief summary of how this desert diorama background layer came together!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

I was no stranger to breakage during shipping when I first started selling my glasswork—in fact, the very first piece I ever sold fell victim to it. I’m forever grateful to the incredibly understanding Etsy customer who left me a glowing review despite the resulting inconvenience, and often think about how if her reaction had been the opposite, my glass career may have ended then and there.

Luckily, that early failure forced me to quickly figure out a dependable packing and shipping strategy. Several years later, I’m now on a several-hundred-order-long streak of zero breakage and often receive positive customer feedback on the quality and look of my packaging.

Prepare for the Worst

Since mail sorting facilities use conveyor belts and machinery to move packages through their systems, it’s not uncommon for orders to be aggressively manhandled (er, robothandled?) before arriving with the customer.

In fact, USPS recommends packages be able to withstand 10-foot drops as well as having other packages (weighing up to 25lb) land on top of them from this height (yikes!).

All the “Fragile!” stickers in the world won’t save a glass piece from the above nightmare scenario. Fortunately, there are 2 critical actions that if taken, I’ve found to virtually guarantee a package’s safety:

#1: Constrain Movement

The more glass is able to move around during shipping, the more likely it is to knock into something hard enough to break (that “something” could very well be the side of the box it’s packaged in). To mitigate this, pieces can be taped or tied down to a stationary surface.

In the case of the fused glass daisy earrings shown here (and all my jewelry pieces), I secure twist wire around their centers to keep them firmly in place. I then lay them in a small box sandwiched with extra padding and tie it shut with ribbon. This creates a highly constricted environment that allows for very little movement.

Ornament-sized pieces and even small panels can be tied down and boxed in a similar manner, but obviously require a larger backing card and longer/thicker twist wires.

#2: Add 1-2 Cubic Inches of Padding

Strategically-placed padding acts as a shock absorber when a package is dropped or hit, shielding the delicate glass inside from the brunt of the force. To maximize its protection, it should completely surround the piece in a layer at least 1-2” thick. I’ve found shredded paper and packing peanuts to be the most reliable sources of cushioning for glass.

The cardboard boxes I use to pack my pieces are ~2” larger in each direction than the small jewelry boxes I place inside them. This enables me to pack a thick wall of crinkle paper underneath and around each side of the jewelry boxes. I then place a folded sheet of bubble wrap on the very top so the jewelry box has 360° protection, but the customer doesn’t have to dig it out.

The same padding principle can be applied to larger pieces, but the thickness of the padding should increase in proportion to the size of the piece. For instance, I cushion my ~12x12” panels with a padding layer 3-5” thick.

*Cautionary Note: depending on the carrier, shipping insurance may not apply to glass, and that fact may not be explicitly stated when purchasing the insurance! Pirate Ship (my shipping coordinator of choice) offers package insurance with no warning that glass isn’t covered, but if you check the fine print, it clearly states that stained glass is excluded from coverage (so sneaky)! For a while I was purchasing insurance on every once of my orders, completely oblivious to the fact that any had broken I wouldn’t have been able to file a claim.

Pack It Pretty

It’s totally possible to cobble together perfectly safe packaging with boxes and cushion salvaged from Amazon orders. However, receiving a hodgepodge of mix-and-match packing scrap doesn’t exactly inspire customers with the confidence and trust they need to become loyal, return buyers.

To keep things looking professional, I opt to use a standard set of materials when packing orders:

1. Twist wire

2. Branded earring holder (or necklace holder, or ornament backer, etc.)

3. Bubble wrap

4. Pre-padded jewelry box

5. Branded business & thank you cards

6. Small hole puncher

7. Branded packing tape

8. “Handle With Care” stickers

9. Sponge

10. Corrugated cardboard box

11. Crinkle paper

Video Demo

The following video demonstrates how I utilize these materials to package a fused glass jewelry order.

Watch how I package a pair of fused glass daisy earrings!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Thoughts

Laying the Base

To create a background for the torii to be fused onto, I cut and shaped a black ring to an exact 1/8” width (see this post to learn my technique for making these sorts of pieces), and then added a white circle that fit tightly within its center. I fused these pieces together at a full fuse firing schedule.

I opened the kiln to an unfortunate unintended result: the post-fuse circle had shrunk by ~1/16" all around! When designing this piece, I foolishly forgot to take into account the “6mm rule.”

In paraphrase, the “6mm rule” dictates that the physical properties of glass are such that while melting, it tends to expand or contract (depending on its original thickness) to a final thickness of ~6mm.

Because my design was initially a single 3mm layer, it contracted during the firing process as it thickened toward 6mm, leaving it slightly smaller than my pattern had intended.

This alteration wasn’t ideal, but I mitigated it by decreasing the size of the remaining pattern pieces by the same percentage so they’d still fit onto the background in the same proportion as originally planned (this is an excellent use case for demonstrating how drawing patterns digitally instead of by hand can save tons of time and headaches).

Constructing the Torii

The central design element of this ornament is a Japanese torii gate, based on the “Daiwa” style shown here. The gate is topped by a black horizontal beam upon a red one (known as the kasagi and the shimaki, respectively). I wanted to stay true to the actual structure by ensuring that these beams came across as a single, cohesive piece as opposed to two separate entities.

In order to accomplish this, I fired these pieces together in a 3-step process before starting on the rest of the torii:

Step 1

I cut the individual red and black pieces and roughly ground them to shape, purposefully leaving them slightly larger than the pattern required.

Step 2

I combined these two pieces into one by kiln-firing them at a full fuse schedule.

Step 3

I used a grinder to shape the fully fused piece to match the pattern as closely as possible.

Once the combined kasagi/shimaki beam was finished, I cut and ground the remaining torii segments and glued them together to fit the pattern design. I then fired the entire structure at a contour fuse firing schedule because unlike the kasagi/shimaki beam (which I wanted to fuse into a single smooth piece with minimal texture), I wanted the rest of the torii elements to maintain a high level of detail and raised texture.

Aaaaaaand, that didn’t turn out quite right, did it? A few things went wrong during the firing process:

• The kasagi/shimaki beam rolled upward and off of the bottom pillar pieces so it ended up fusing in such a way that the red portion completely covered the black portion, and the entire segment was positioned higher than intended.

• The smaller horizontal beam support bits also shifted crookedly (likely as a result of the kasagi/shimaki beam rolling upward).

• The edges of the entire gate softened more than I wanted, especially considering it would eventually need to be re-fired in order to be fused to the background.

Taking note of what went wrong, I tweaked my strategy and started a new gate from scratch.

Note that I chose to build the torii and other design elements separate from the background piece, and then fuse them all onto the background at the very end, after all the individual elements were finished.

This way, if one of the design elements went awry during fusing, I could modify that individual element without needing to redo the entire background piece.

(obviously a prescient move, considering this failed fusing attempt)

This time I made several adjustments to my construction strategy:

• I de-intensified the firing schedule from a contour fuse to a tack fuse to maintain sharper edges.

• I used 2mm stringers to create the four very small horizontal beam supports instead of sheet glass to create a more evenly spaced, symmetrical result, and to give them some added roundness that differentiated them from the rest of the torii. I used a grinder to flatten the backsides of these stringers to minimize the likelihood of their rolling during firing.

• I extended the length of the vertical segments to very near the outer edges of the horizontal ones to decrease the chances of the horizontal beams rolling off of them.

• I tack fused the horizontal beam sections together before tack fusing them again to the vertical segments to further decrease the chances of any single individual segment shifting on its own.

The resulting fused piece wasn’t quite perfect (the top kasagi/shimaki beam curved about the lower vertical pillars more than I liked, and the spacing between the tiny horizontal bits wasn’t perfectly symmetrical), but overall it was close enough to move forward with (and an unquestionable improvement over the first attempt!).

Sprouting Bamboo

Referring back to my sample tests, I created bamboo stalks via the delicate process of sifting through various shades of green frit for the perfect leafy bits. I glued them to the base layer along with the torii gate and clouded moon elements in preparation for the ornament’s final fuse.

Adding bamboo details

Finishing Up…Or Just Getting Started?

I contour fused the entire ornament, aiming to keep as much texture and detail as possible while ensuring all the elements were solidly fused in place. Upon removing it from the kiln, I was done! …or was I?

I really liked how the moon and torii turned out, but the bamboo just wasn’t reading quite right. I knew it was supposed to depict a bamboo forest, but I wasn’t sure that someone viewing it for the first time would immediately understand that.

Since the client knew the context of the piece, I was sure they’d recognize the bamboo and be happy with the ornament as it was, but I just can’t bring myself to sell work that isn’t the absolute best quality I can possibly produce. I’d have always wondered if I could have done better.

Even though it meant doubling the time and materials (bye, bye, any potential profit!) I decided to redo the entire thing.

Reworking the Greenery

Since I was happy with the majority of design elements in the first version, I only made two significant changes to the second iteration:

• I updated my original pattern to correctly account for the “6mm rule” (increasing the size of the black and white background by ~1/16”) to ensure this version ended up the exact size I’d initially intended.

• I created the bamboo stalks with 1mm stringers instead of sheet glass bits to create a slimmer, more consistent look that would hopefully read more realistically as bamboo.

I created a test sample to preview different stringer colors before deciding which to use in the final piece.

Since stringers are round and prone to rolling during firing, I ground one of its sides to flatten it before nipping it into several small bamboo-sized segments.

Admiring the Final Fuse

When I pulled the second iteration from the kiln, I was relieved to see that the effort of redoing this piece was totally worth it. Both the torii gate and the bamboo had significant improvements over their predecessors, and there was no question of the bamboo being misinterpreted this time.

The finished Torii gate ornament

Upon receiving this piece, the client was thrilled and left a very thoughtful review to show it, which is always the ideal way to wrap up a commission!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

When is Lead Exposure a Concern?

Lightly handling a finished piece of leaded stained glass does not cause a dangerous level of exposure, although hands should be thoroughly washed after doing so to prevent the transfer of lead particles to food, or to the face, or to anywhere else that may result in their being ingested. Extra precaution should also be taken to keep leaded stained glass out of the reach of children, since their version of “lightly handling” sometimes includes chewing or licking, which definitely can cause dangerous levels of exposure. In general, stained glass pieces within the home are perfectly safe as long as they’re treated as art and not playthings.

The greatest risk of stained glass lead exposure occurs during the creation process, when bare lead is handled extensively and fine lead dust particles are created through abrasive activities.

Unlike customers who only handle stained glass occasionally, artists who create such pieces regularly must take serious precautionary measures within their studio to prevent chronic lead exposure.

What are the Effects of Chronic Lead Exposure?

According to OSHA (The Occupational Safety and Health Administration), chronic lead exposure is associated with “impaired kidney function, high blood pressure, nervous system and neurobehavioral effects, cognitive dysfunction,” and a whole slew of other maladies that increase in severity with the level of exposure. Chronic ingestion of lead particles is particularly insidious because instead of being flushed through the body, these particles are stored within the bones where they accumulate and are eventually released very slowly back into the bloodstream and soft tissue organs long after exposure has ceased (as fully detailed by the CDC (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)). This means that once buildup has occurred, there’s no way to remove it short of intense medical intervention (e.g. chelation therapy).

This is all of course terribly frightening information if you currently have entire spools of the aforementioned killer metal sitting in your workshop and handle it on a regular basis. Fortunately, there are several preventative measures glassworkers can implement within their studios to allow for the safe use of lead.

Note that many of the preventative measures listed below are worth implementing in non-leaded glass studios as well since they also protect against exposure to glass dust and chemical fumes.

Best Practices to Minimize Lead Exposure

1. Install Proper Ventilation

Ideally, all stained glass studios should include a ventilator situated above the workspace that pulls air upward and away from the artist’s face, and then redirects that air outside. For leaded glass studios, this ventilator should also be fitted with a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter to trap lead particles within the airflow and prevent them from escaping. Any procedures that generate lead dust particles (e.g. using abrasives on solder seams, sawing lead came, etc.) should be conducted within close range of the ventilator.

Installing a kitchen range hood over the work surface is one of the most widely used methods in professional studios and workshops to achieve ventilation necessary to remove lead dust, glass dust, and chemical fumes. Unfortunately, hooded ventilation systems can be expensive and difficult to install, especially if your studio is in a small apartment or other residential space.

A less ideal, but more convenient option in small studio spaces may be to use a HEPA-filtered air purifier* to extract lead dust particles from the room.

*HEPA-grade filters are capable of removing 99.97% of airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns or larger. Lead dust particles range in size from 0.1 - 0.7 microns, which means a HEPA filter alone may not capture 100% of them. See Best Practice #11: Clean Regularly below for information on higher efficiency filters.

Be aware that standard desk fans are not suitable ventilation for lead dust particles—they may blow them away from your face for a time, but just transfer them to another section of your studio.

2. Wear a Respirator

Avoid inhaling dust particles while abrading lead by wearing a respirator with P100 particulate filters installed. A P100 rating is the highest level of personal respiratory protection (it has the same filtering capability as the HEPA filters discussed in Best Practice #1 above).

Respirators are available in different sizes, and usually have adjustable straps.

An accurate fit is critical to ensure they sit snugly against the face and create a particle-proof seal*.

It’s also important to replace the filter cartridges regularly (either after the recommended time period as noted by the manufacturer or when they become so filled with debris that they’re difficult to breathe through). To extend their life, cartridges should be stored in a airtight bag or container when not in use.

Solder does not vaporize into airborne lead particles at typical stained glass soldering temperatures (lead’s boiling point is 3,180°F), so there is no concern of inhaling particles during this activity. However, a respirator with fume filters should still be worn while soldering to protect from the dangerous vapors given off by evaporating flux.

*Be aware that although they’re cheaper, disposable respirators don’t provide the same level of face seal as reusable ones.

3. Perform Wet Abrasion

Similar to how grinders maintain constant waterflow across their bits to prevent glass dust particles from becoming airborne, abrasive surfaces used to saw, scratch, or polish lead should also be kept wet throughout the abrading process to prevent lead dust particles from flying about. This can be accomplished by using a wet saw (if cutting), or by keeping the lead immersed in liquid while rubbing an abrasive against its surface (if scratching or polishing).

When abrading the solder or lead seams of small stained glass pieces (commonly done to prep the metal for patina application or to impart a shiny luster), the entire piece should be placed in a shallow basin of liquid (water, cleaning solution, etc.) filled just enough to cover its surface. An abrading tool (wire brush, scrubby sponge, steel wool, etc.) can then be used to scratch the lead seams to the desired level.

If the glass piece is too large to reasonably fit in a basin, liquid can instead be continually dripped or sprayed on to its surface throughout the abrasion process.

Be aware that any basins used to hold liquid or cloths used to dry the glass piece should not afterward be cleaned in a dishwasher or a washing machine along with other dishes or clothes as this will contaminate those items with lead particles; see Best Practice #5: Designate a Uniform & Best Practice #11: Clean Regularly below for information on proper de-leading cleaning methods.

4. Wear Gloves

Although there appears to be debate as to whether lead particles can be absorbed through the skin (according to the CDC, “the quantitative significance of the dermal absorption pathway as a contributor to [lead] body burden in humans remains an uncertainty” as per the Toxicological Profile for Lead), I personally feel it’s better to be safe than sorry in this case.

There is definitely no debate that lead particles can enter the skin through open wounds, even the tiny papercut-like ones glassworkers often sustain, sometimes without their realizing it.

Gloves should be worn whenever handling lead came or solder to prevent lead particles from entering the body via wounds or skin absorption.

Additionally, since lead particles can easily be transferred to the mouth from other parts of the face, glassworkers should take the utmost care not to touch their head, neck, hair, etc. while working with lead.

I wear disposable 6-mil nitrile gloves in my studio because they’re affordable, available in a small size, and rarely tear.

5. Designate a Uniform

To further restrict lead contamination, glassworkers should decide on a specific outfit and pair of footwear to don in the studio, and only in the studio, while performing leadwork. This way, any toxic lead particles that get stuck to clothing won’t be transferred to the car, the home, or loved ones. To provide maximum protection, the clothes worn in the studio should cover as much of the body as possible.

An ideal studio uniform should include a high-necked, long-sleeved top, long pants, and closed-toe shoes.

It’s prudent to actually choose at least two outfits in order to wash one and still be able to work.

Studio uniforms must be cleaned separately from non-studio clothing to avoid contaminating an entire load of laundry with lead particles. It’s also necessary to use special de-leading detergent when washing these items since standard detergent can’t break down the electrostatic bonds that cause heavy metal particles to stick tightly to fabrics and fibers.

As an extra precaution (or for those that insist upon wearing the same footwear both inside and outside of the studio) a de-leading sticky mat can be placed at the doorstep of the workshop to trap particles from shoe soles as they enter and exit.

Be aware that there are specific steps required to thoroughly clean the washer and dryer after completing a contaminated load, and to test both machines for lead prior to washing any non-studio clothing.

6. Don’t Eat or Drink

Since ingestion of lead dust is the primary way in which these toxic particles enter and wreak havoc within the body, food and drink should never be brought into the studio.

Even unopened consumables are a risk, since lead particles can stick to their wrappers or containers and be transferred to the hands or food itself when they’re opened. This also applies to any items that may go near or in the mouth, even if they’re not technically food, such as:

• Chewing gum

• Chapstick/lipstick

• Cigarettes/vape pens/pipes

7. Minimize Phone Use

Part of my frustration with the trend toward video that social media has taken over the last several years is that it’s extremely inconducive to leaded stained glass studio safety. Since phones are constantly handled and held up to the face, they should be kept out of the studio as much as possible to minimize their likelihood of collecting lead particles.

Of course, in today’s day and age it’s not entirely reasonable for glassworkers to shun their cell phones for hours on end.

If a cell phone absolutely must be brought into the studio, it should be thoroughly rubbed with de-leading wipes after use and kept in an airtight container when not in use.

Glassworkers that consistently film or photograph their processes may consider investing in a camera or phone exclusively for in-studio use. This is an excellent way to utilize an old phone after buying a new one (decidedly more worthwhile than the insultingly low fee cellular companies offer to buy it back for).

8. Ban Pets

As cute as they are, pets should never be allowed in a stained glass studio. Aside from their being likely to step on or slurp up small glass shards, they can also act as furry dust traps that transfer lead dust particles out of the studio and all throughout the home. Also, lead is just as toxic to them as it is to us!

9. Wash Your Hands

As mentioned earlier in Best Practice #5, lead particles are “sticky,” meaning they bind to skin and other surfaces with a strong electrostatic bond and are not always removed completely with common household cleaners.

Because of lead’s strong binding abilities, it’s essential to wash the hands, arms, neck, and face with a specially formulated de-leading soap after performing leadwork or when leaving the glass studio.

Completely removing lead particles also requires a longer and more intense lather than typical hand washing. Most de-leading soap manufacturers recommend scrubbing for 20-30 seconds while also using a fingernail brush to flush particles from underneath the nails.

After performing any type of lead-abrading activities that may have generated airborne particles, it’s also necessary to shower immediately afterward using both de-leading body wash and de-leading shampoo to remove lead dust from the entire body* (glassworkers may also consider wearing a showercap or similar disposable hair cover during leadwork if shampooing isn’t an option).

*ESCA-Tech (manufacturer of D-Lead® products) provides highly detailed instructions on full-body washing techniques to remove lead.

10. Be Aware of Lead-Bearing Glasses

Although several are highly toxic to humans, metal oxides are essential ingredients for creating colored glass, which means that certain glass sheets are actually infused with significant concentrations of lead, depending on their shade. Fortunately, (when glass is purchased from a reputable manufacturer) these concentration levels are so low that the glass can be handled safely with bare hands. However, if food comes into extended contact with the these glass surfaces, there is risk that the lead (or other toxic metals) may leach into it.

Glass pieces made to hold food (plates, bowls, cups, etc.) should be created such that no highly concentrated lead-bearing glass or metal comes into contact with the food when the piece is in use.

It follows that these types of pieces should never be made with lead came or traditional solder, and only with glasses that have acceptably low and verifiable concentration levels of toxic metal oxides.

Bullseye Glass provides a food safety data sheet that specifies which of its glass sheets contain more than 1.0% lead or more than 0.5% cadmium (a fellow metal oxide toxic for human ingestion).

Oceanside Glass™ also provides Material Safety Data Sheets for its glasses, indicating the concentration levels of metal oxides contained in each. Since partnering with Oceanside Glass™ to create instructional courses, I’ve learned that they actually do not use lead to produce their glass due to its safety risks, which I highly appreciate! They do however use other toxic metal oxides, so caution still needs to be taken when using their glass to create food-bearing pieces.

There is a workaround available for this issue for those with access to a kiln:

Glass of high metal concentration can be capped with glass of low metal concentration in order to create a food-safe barrier. This is most easily done with a clear or transparent-colored cap layer that will closely maintain the color of the base layer glass underneath.

As a related best practice for business, any non-food-safe product that could be easily misused to hold food (such as a dish or plate meant solely as art or meant to hold non-food items) should be listed for sale with an explicit customer-facing statement that it is not suitable for such function.

11. Clean Regularly

Even if there are no dust-generating activities currently taking place within a stained glass studio, it’s still possible for previously-generated lead particles sitting on surfaces to be stirred up, blown about the room, and inhaled or ingested. To prevent this, a studio should be thoroughly cleaned on a regular basis, and especially following the creation of lead dust.

Instead of dry sweeping or dusting, which kicks up dust particles into the air, cleaning should take place via wet wiping, mopping, or vacuuming to keep lead particles contained.

All surfaces that may be exposed to lead dust should be wiped down regularly, including not only work tables on which lead is manipulated, but also any nearby tools and materials as well as any surrounding walls, windows, and doors. As with the body and laundry-cleaning methods mentioned earlier, special de-leading solutions (such as this cleaner concentrate) must also be used for surfaces. These can be applied with a sponge, mop, or sprayer, and then wiped away with a clean cloth.

Some vacuums can be equipped with H-Class filters*, which are particularly efficient, being able to trap 99.995% of airborne particles with a size of 0.3 microns or larger (as compared to the 99.97% of a standard HEPA filter). H-Class filters arespecifically designed to trap the tiniest, most hazardous dust particles from things like asbestos, mold, and lead (which can be as small as 0.1 microns).

Such a low percentage difference may not seem critical, but H-Class filters are industry-standard (industry-required in some cases) in fields that involve repeated hazardous dust exposure. Personally, I don’t believe one can ever be too safe when it comes to avoiding risks associated with lead dust.

Surfaces within leaded stained glass studios should be periodically checked with test kits to validate that they’ve been adequately cleaned and are free of lead residue. It’s also helpful to perform frequent testing when de-leading a space for the first time in order to ensure correct cleaning techniques are being used.

*Although they seem to be readily available in Europe and Australia, affordable vacuums with H-Class filters are extraordinarily difficult to find in the US (I haven’t been able to determine why this is; perhaps something to do with the difference in safety regulation strictness between countries?).

Be aware that carpeted studios are much more difficult to clean adequately, as the fibrous surface traps lead particles much more effectively than a hard floor.

Be aware that any cloths or other cleaning equipment used to de-lead a space should not be used for cleaning anywhere else in order to prevent cross-contamination.

12. Test Your Levels

The best way to ensure that lead particles are being adequately contained and removed from a stained glass studio is for the people working within it to get their blood lead levels tested regularly. For casual hobbyists this could done on a yearly basis, while for full-time professionals it may require testing every three to four months; the frequency depends upon how often and to what extent leadwork is performed.

Most general physicians can incorporate a blood lead level (BLL) test into a yearly checkup’s bloodwork panel, and one-off testing can be easily coordinated through third party labs like Quest Diagnostics.

The CDC’s BLL safety guidelines (as of April, 2023) indicate that blood lead levels of 3.5 µg/dL or above are a health risk and require treatment. If this threshold is reached, it’s important to identify the source of lead exposure, either remove it or properly contain it (perhaps using the best practices outlined here), and then continue testing regularly until the BLL drops back to normal.

Unfortunately, due to the industrious nature of humanity, trace amounts of lead can be found in a multitude of everyday necessities, including drinking water, food, soil, cosmetics, medicine, and plastics. In fact, the average BLL of U.S. adults is about 0.855 µg/dL, so even after implementing flawless lead exposure methods within the stained glass studio, it may still be possible to regularly ingest a very small amount of lead depending upon one’s environment. Although that’s certainly not ideal, most healthy adults can withstand such low exposure without serious health impacts.

13. Get Your Vitamins

According to the CDC, eating a “diet high in calcium, zinc, vitamin C and iron” may help keep lead from building up in the body. Such nutrients aren’t cures for lead exposure, but when ingested consistently they can help to ensure the body absorbs as little lead as possible.

There are many in-depth articles that explain the biological mechanisms of lead ingestion, but to summarize:

The body confuses lead particles for calcium, and thus transmits them to vulnerable areas (the brain, bones, blood, etc.) where they interfere with vital processes. If the body already contains adequate amounts of calcium and other nutrients when lead is ingested, it will accordingly absorb less of the lead.

Fortunately, nutrients that help offset lead absorption are found in many common foods*:

• Calcium is in milk, yogurt, cheese, and green leafy vegetables like spinach.

• Iron is in red meats, beans, and peanut butter.

• Vitamin C is in oranges and green/red peppers.

• Zinc is in meat, fish, and oysters.

Although it’s almost always more effective to get vitamins and minerals from whole foods, sometimes it’s not possible to do so consistently. Personally, I use the Cronometer app to track what I eat (I’m a health nut in regard to more than just lead safety), and on days I don’t get enough key nutrients from my diet, I take supplements to obtain the minimum recommended amount.

*Interestingly, some studies have concluded that garlic alone, and garlic in combination with silymarin (milk thistle extract) may combat certain cases of lead poisoning just as effectively as therapeutic drugs (e.g. Findings by Sina Kianoush et al., and Findings by Iman A. El-Khishin et al.).

14. Consider Going Lead-Free

As a last resort, lead alloys used in the creation of stained glass can be swapped for lead-free versions, with the caveat that these substitutes don’t produce quite the same desirable looks and behaviors as the originals.

Lead-free solder (typically made from some combination of tin, copper, silver, nickel, and zinc) can be used in place of traditional leaded solder.

The downsides of this swap are that:

• Lead-free solder doesn’t flow nearly as well as leaded solder, so there’s a steep learning curve (and it may not even be possible to achieve the same degree of perfectly smooth, even beads).

• Lead-free solder has a higher melting point than leaded solder, which results in a shorter soldering iron tip life (around 4 to 5 times shorter, according to Hakko).

• Lead-free solder doesn’t accept patinas as well as leaded solder, often turning a duller version of the desired color.

For outer framing, channels made from copper, zinc, or brass can be used in place of traditional lead came.

The negatives of this interchange are that:

• These metals are much less malleable than lead, so they typically require special tools to bend or cut, as opposed to the simple combination of hands and a sharp knife that can manipulate traditional lead came.

• These metals don’t accept patinas as well as lead, often turning a duller version of the desired color or appearing splotchy.

Be aware that many metals are toxic to human ingestion, so incorporating any of the above lead alternatives into stained glass pieces still needs to be done in conjunction with proper precautions.

Video Demo of My Studio’s Lead Safety in Action!

Watch how I implement these lead safety practices within my studio!

Sources & Products Referenced in This Post

• OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) | Health Effects of Lead | https://www.osha.gov/lead/health-effects

• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) | What is the Biological Fate of Lead in the Body? | https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/biologic_fate.html

• WebMD | What Is Chelation Therapy? | https://www.webmd.com/balance/what-is-chelation-therapy

• Amazon | Coway Airmega AP-1512HH True HEPA Purifier | https://amzn.to/4mrG8Db

• EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) | What is a HEPA Filter? | https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/what-hepa-filter

• Engineering Tool Box | Particle Sizes | https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/particle-sizes-d_934.html

• Amazon | 3M Rugged Comfort Quick Latch Half Facepiece Reusable Respirator | https://amzn.to/3K5H0zW

• Amazon | 3M P100 Particulate Filter | https://amzn.to/48mn3Pk

• RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) | Elemental Data of Lead | https://www.rsc.org/periodic-table/element/82/lead

• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) | Lead: Information for Workers | https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/lead/workerinfo.html

• ASTDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) | Toxicological Profile for Lead | https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp13.pdf

• Amazon | Disposable Black Nitrile Gloves | https://amzn.to/48hWbju

• Amazon | D-Lead® Laundry Detergent | https://amzn.to/3Irlo0h

• ESCA-Tech | Tacky Mats | https://esca-tech.com/product-category/tacky-mats/

• Free People | Jumpsuits | https://www.freepeople.com/jumpsuits-rompers/

• ESCA-Tech | Washing Leaded Clothes at Home | https://esca-tech.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Washing-leaded-clothes-at-home-final_R1.pdf

• Amazon | D-Wipe® Towels | https://amzn.to/4gDjZ3t

• Amazon | D-Lead® Abrasive Hand Soap | https://amzn.to/3IhKvCU

• Amazon | D-Lead® Deluxe Whole Body Wash and Shampoo | https://amzn.to/41WFLJq

• ESCA-Tech | Cleanliness—Key to Low Blood Lead Levels | https://esca-tech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Cleanliness-Key-to-Low-Exposure-English.pdf

• Bullseye Glass | Food Safety | https://www.bullseyeglass.com/wp-content/uploads/Food-Safety.pdf

• Oceanside Compatible® | Material Safety Data Sheets | https://oceansidecompatible.com/pages/safety-information-1

• Amazon | D-Lead® Surface Cleaner Concentrate | https://amzn.to/4n5nQbP

• All Preparation Equipment | Difference Between L, M, & H Class Vacuums | https://www.allprep.com.au/blog/272

• ESCA-Tech | D-Lead® Test Kits For Metallurgical Lead Dust | https://esca-tech.com/product/d-lead-test-kits-for-lead-dust/

• Quest Diagnostics | Patient Testing | https://www.questdiagnostics.com/patients/get-tested

• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) | Blood Lead Level Reference Guide | https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/lead/referencebloodlevelsforadults.html

• CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) | Sources of Lead Exposure | https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/sources.htm

• ASTDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) | Lead Toxicity Patient Education | https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/leadtoxicity/patient_education.html

• Harvard University | The Deadly Biology of Lead Exposure | https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/deadly-biology-lead-exposure/

• Cronometer | https://cronometer.com/

• Pub Med | Comparison of Therapeutic Effects of Garlic and D-Penicillamine in Patients with Chronic Occupational Lead Poisoning | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22151785/

• Pub Med | Role of Garlic Extract and Silymarin Compared to Dimercaptosuccinic Acid (DMSA) in Treatment of Lead Induced Nephropathy in Adult Male Albino Rats | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5598274/

• Hakko | Lead-Free Soldering | https://www.hakko.com/english/namari/pages/

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

The current project I’m working on calls for a square of glass with a circular cutout in its center.

The easiest and most efficient way to cut large or irregular-shaped holes is by using a ring saw with a separating blade installed.

However, before I’m able to use the saw, there’s some prep work to be done to ensure it goes smoothly.

Preparing the Glass

First, I cut and grind the outer perimeter of my glass to fit my pattern (in this case, a perfect square). Once the circular cutout is removed, the piece will be much more fragile and prone to breaking if pressure is applied via cutting or grinding. Finalizing the outer perimeter of the piece makes it so I’ll have minimal work to do on it after using the saw, and thus minimal chance of an unwanted break.

Next, I go over my Sharpie-drawn pattern lines with a glue stick. Covering my pattern lines with a waterproof barrier is absolutely critical to ensuring that they stay put throughout the sawing to come.

Ring saws create heavy water flow across the glass surface, which can quickly wash away unprotected marker lines, and it’s a hassle to take apart a saw mid-cut to redraw.

After applying the glue, I wait about 5 minutes to make sure it's completely dry before moving on to the following steps.

Grinding the Initial Hole

Powerful as it may be, a separating ring saw blade can’t just stab through solid glass—it needs an entry point. To create one, I pick a point on my glass within the cutout section, hold that precise point on top of the ¼” bit of my grinder, and gently apply downward pressure until the bit grinds completely through to the surface.

Throughout the process, I also hold a wet sponge on the underside of the glass against the grinder bit, periodically re-wetting it to maintain constant water flow.

I find this method to be the quickest way of creating entry points since I always have a grinder at the ready, but they can be created using any rotary tool with a diamond bit. Some artists prefer to use an electric drill or a Dremel tool.

The exact method of creating the entry point doesn’t matter as long as precaution is taken to ensure consistent water flow across the grinding surface.

This prevents inhalation of dangerous glass dust and also preserves the life of the grinding head.

Cutting With the Saw Blade

A separating saw blade is installed just like a standard saw blade. The difference is that once it’s fitted into the saw, the separating blade can be pulled apart at a special joint, allowing glass to be slid onto the ring.

After the blade is secured, the glass can be cut the same as with a standard saw blade—by slowly guiding the blade along the pattern lines. Once the cut is complete, the cutout can be removed and the saw blade unattached at its joint to free the remaining piece.

Refining the Cut

I head back to the grinder to shape the rough perimeter of the circular cutout, this time using a 1” bit.

The Sharpie marks finally start to wear off at this point, so I have to pause periodically to redraw them.

Once the piece matches my pattern exactly, I’m finished!

Video Demo

Watch the process!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

As an artist that prides herself on attention to detail and exactness of design, the fact that glass expands and contracts as it heats, sometimes causing entire millimeters-worth of deviation from a pattern, plagues me with many a sleepless night. Recently, while contemplating this persistent vexation, I wondered whether a solution might lie in using frit to fill the empty space around specifically-designed shapes.

Can surrounding design elements with frit prevent their expanding during a full fuse?

Sample Setup

I figured there’s no more appropriate creature to swim through a sea of frit than a fish, so I sketched a couple of finned friends to serve as the pattern for this experiment. This pattern served as the “control,” or the unchanging element that acts as a point of comparison to measure results against.

I then created two different samples (Sample A and Sample B) based off of this pattern to test whether surrounding one with frit would result in less deviation from the original size:

• Sample A: two fish cut and ground to match the pattern, glued atop two layers of white opalescent glass cut to roughly the same size and shape

• Sample B: two fish cut and ground to match the pattern, glued atop a single layer of white opalescent glass and surrounded by a tight-fitting layer of coarse-grain clear transparent frit

To create Sample B’s frit layer, I mixed coarse-grain clear transparent frit with Bullseye GlasTac Gel, using just enough adhesive to ensure each grain was coated. I then poured the sticky frit around the fish, using tweezers to manipulate it into every tiny gap surrounding the design and form it into the flattest, most cohesive layer I could.

Initial Firing

Once the glue on both samples was fully dry, I placed them on a primed kiln shelf design-sides down. Firing this way yields sharper shapes with less pattern deviation than firing design-side up.

I also dammed Sample B with fiber paper and stainless steel since I was concerned grains from the frit layer might spread outward during firing, defeating the goal of their coalescing into a single, tight-knit layer.

I fired the samples at a 90 COE full fuse schedule (heating them to around 1,500°F).

Observations

Upon removing the samples from the kiln, it was apparent the glass didn’t quite achieve a full fuse.

Sample A’s fish had a slight indent all around their perimeters, looking as if were pressed into the bottom white layers instead of sitting in-line with them.

The outlines of Sample B’s individual frit grains were still fully distinguishable and the outer edge was sharply jagged. Although not fully fused, the fish designs in this sample did keep to their original shape more so than those in Sample A, which had rounded out and expanded.

Second Firing

Since the samples didn’t fully fuse down to the point I wanted, I placed them back in the kiln and re-fired them at a more intense full fuse schedule to melt them down further.

For the second firing, I increased both the max temperature and max temperature hold time, and left both samples undammed.

More Observations

The second firing’s hotter schedule caused both samples to full fuse successfully.

Sample A’s front and back surfaces were nearly perfectly flat, and the fish designs had expanded and rounded out in the typical manner of a full fuse.

Sample B’s frit layer had fully fused together into a flat surface, but rough outlines of individual frit grains remained visible along with numerous tiny bubbles. The fish designs did indeed hold their shape more so than in Sample A, although the seam where design meets frit had taken on a a choppy, angular look. Also, the backside surface was much more bumpy than that of Sample A.

Conclusion

My hypothesis that the sea of frit would help design elements maintain their sharp edges and stay true to pattern size turned out to be correct! However, the edges were maintained in a fairly uneven manner, and the frit layer caused too many additional undesirable impacts (choppy design element outlines and numerous bubbles) for it to be a worthwhile strategy in my opinion. However, the aesthetic resulting from this technique could be useful in a future project where such a unique look is desired.

It’s valuable to note that Sample A’s design elements expanded from the pattern size by a uniform ~1/16” around their entire perimeter.

If I assume most other 90 COE glasses fired at a full fuse will behave similarly, I can adjust for this change in future designs.

I’m curious as to what the results of reiterating this experiment with medium-grain, fine-grain, and even powder frit would be. I suspect the finer the frit grain, the smoother the edges of the seam where design meets frit would be, but the more tiny bubbles there would be as well…

Video Comparison of Final Fused Fish Samples

See how the final states of Samples A & B compare!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

If you want to see exactly how I store glass in my small home studio, scroll down for an in-depth explanation; if you’re just here to quickly get an idea of some useful products to do so, see the links below!

“Neat Freak”

…or as I prefer to call it, “organizationally gifted.” I’ve always been obsessed with streamlining and decluttering spaces. In fact, when I was little I was repeatedly chastised by friends’ parents after they’d come home to find that I’d completely reorganized their closets, desks, bookcases, etc. while they were out. Apparently, this isn’t a normal playdate activity and not everyone appreciates the gift of having all their clothes rearranged by color?? Strange.

So it’s no surprise that I’ve kept my glass studio meticulously organized from its inception. While some might scoff at the time put into maintaining such order, I can’t count how many times it’s turned out to be an absolute lifesaver. I organize lots of different things in lots of different ways, but this post focuses on how I store glass, since that’s the material all glassworkers have in common and often also the most unwieldy one to tackle.

Small Space Struggles

My “studio” is actually just a spare bedroom of our home, so it’s not overly spacious or decked out with custom-built glass storage shelves like many professional workshops. Although 12 square feet seemed roomy at first, it started to feel cramped after I accumulated multiple grinders, a ring saw, a kiln, and of course, dozens and dozens of glass sheets.

Since glass is my most consistently-accessed material, I prioritize space for it above all other supplies.

This means when I first setup my studio layout (and during the several times I’ve had to restructure it to fit my growing business/skillset), the glass is the first thing I designate space for and put away. Then I move to the next most-critical item, and continue down the priority line. I’ve found this strategy to be key to maximizing the efficiency of my small space since some items will inevitably need to be stored inconveniently in the backs of closets or on very high shelves (or even exiled to the garage, eek!), and it’s important that those end up being the things I use the least.

Storing Large Glass Sheets (∼20x20”)

I started out by leaning the entire stack of my largest sheets (which are 24x24”) flat against a wall, but once their number increased to more than just a handful, the weight put the backmost sheets in a precarious situation. It also prevented anything else from being positioned too near the stack, since I needed a lot of room to safely pull out one of the sheets when needed. The obvious best place to store them was underneath my work tables, but I needed to find something to keep them upright and separated under there.

So I made a trip to The Container Store (a.k.a. The Organizer’s Mecca), and found these Mesh Super Sorters. Even though they’re surprisingly heavy, they’re not quite heavy enough to hold 24x24” sheets without worry of tipping. However, by positioning one underneath each end of my work tables and using the table legs as added support, they easily house all my largest sheets.

There are very similar organizers available on Amazon with additional color and size options.

Storing Medium-to-Small Glass Sheets (∼12x12”)

The same mesh Super Sorters I use for my largest sheets are even more ideal for medium-sized ones because they’re heavy enough to hold up to 80 12x12” 3mm glass sheets (wow! I’d never totaled that amount until just now) without needing a table leg for extra support.

My smallest glass sheets are kept in these Mesh Letter Holders also from The Container Store (similar ones available on Amazon), which are basically smaller versions of the file organizers mentioned above. They’re lighter though, so they’re not suitable for pieces much taller than their own height.

They’re perfect for misfit chunks that are too small to be sheets and too large be scraps.

Each Letter Holder can store up to 15 6x6” 3mm glass pieces.

I’ve fit 4 Super Sorters and 11 Letter Holders in my studio closet, taking advantage of every possible inch.

The large Super Sorters also make for decent stringer and noodle storage, as displayed on another one of my closet shelves.

Storing Glass Scraps & Frit

For a long time I was stymied by those teeny tiny scraps that seem too inconvenient to store at all. In fact, when I first started tinkering with glass I was tempted to toss them, but had a nagging feeling I could put them to use one day. It turns out this hunch was correct.

Even the smallest bit of frit can be a valuable part of a fused glass or mosaic project, and there are plenty of potential buyers for scrap on forums like eBay and Facebook marketplace.

The first way I tried organizing these itty bits was by keeping them separated in Ziploc bags, but their sharp edges kept poking through and painfully reminding me what an impractical solution that was.

I saw other artists using bins and buckets to store small scraps by color, but since I wanted to keep mine categorized by their individual type as opposed to their color family, that would require dozens and dozens of bins, which was again, rather impractical.

I knew if I wandered the aisles of my beloved Container Store aimlessly, I would eventually come upon some sort of a solution.

Sure enough, I stumbled upon these Photo Storage Carriers (also available slightly cheaper from Amazon), which could hardly be a more perfect answer.

(If you’re beginning to suspect that a Container Store rep is holding a gun to my head as I write this post and whispering menacingly that I’d better “mention the products or else,” I would completely understand.)

Each carrier nests 16 smaller containers within it, which are just the right size for tiny scrap storage.

I label each nested container with the specific glass type it houses, and then also label the parent carrier with the range of glasses it contains so the contents are identifiable at a glance.

I store the parent carriers in order of manufacturer (Bullseye, Oceanside, Wissmach, etc.) and glass family (opalescent, streaky, translucent, etc.), which makes it a breeze to find the exact little nested container I need out of hundreds.

Now, before anyone emails this page to the FBI because this storage method makes them suspect I have a dementedly obsessive mind that should be kept on a watchlist, let me explain that keeping glass strictly organized by type is absolutely critical to glass fusing.

Each glass has a unique rate of expanding/contracting during the firing process (referred to as the C.O.E., or Coefficient of Expansion), and can only be fused to glasses of a compatible rate. Fusing incompatible glasses results in unstable pieces that are liable to crack or break, and should be avoided at all costs. Because of this risk, some artists choose to stock their studios only with glasses of the exact same C.O.E. (e.g. only glasses manufactured by Bullseye, or only glasses manufactured by Oceanside Glass™).

Since I buy from many different manufacturers, sorting scrap down to this level is worthwhile insurance against accidentally mixing C.O.E.s within my fusing projects (and you know what? I actually am a dementedly obsessive organization freak, and if you still feel like you have to tell the FBI about it, go ahead).

Is All That Organizing Worth It?

Um, if I could live in The Container Store, would I??? (this question is rhetorical, just like the former). Whether artists choose to organize their glass down to the same meticulous degree that I do, or if they’re satisfied keeping it in bins by general color isn’t of as much import as the fact that:

Some type of organization is helpful, and it’s best to implement that organization before a collection grows too large.

Personally, I’ve benefited immensely from organized glass storage by:

• Being able to quickly grab a specific piece of glass mid-project without missing a beat. This saves a massive amount of frustration and time that would otherwise be spent sifting through jumbled rows of glass whilst muttering, “I know I put that sheet somewhere…”

• No longer accidentally re-purchasing glass I already have. When glass sheets are kept in a confusing labyrinth, it’s easy to forget exactly what’s in there and end up wasting precious funds re-buying sheets you already own.

• Suffering far fewer of the nicks and scratches that come with constantly handling glass sheets. I only have to move aside 1 or 2 glass sheets at most to get to the one I want, which provides much less opportunity for injury than when I had to move several at a time.

Video Demo of My Studio’s Glass Storage

Take a tour of my studio’s glass storage!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Thoughts

Technically, I don’t take commissions outside of pet and wedding portraits. However, every once in a while a client will approach me with a proposal that tugs at my artistic inclinations too strongly to refuse. In this case I was hooked by a request for a Japan-inspired ornament.

I’ve been intrigued by Japanese culture since my early teens, when I used to make a habit of surfing fashion blogs, and stumbled across one dedicated to Harajuku street style.

I was enamored immediately; Harajuku fashion was so creative and fantastical that it seemed more like art than clothing, and I had to know more about the place where it started.

I was soon spending the majority of my free time buried deep in study of countless other fascinating cultural aspects of Japan, from geishas and teahouses, to samurai and katanas, to dragon-adorned shrines (it’s been rumored that my obsession is actually what sparked Gwen Stefani’s '“Harajuku Girls” to hit the scene several years later).

Fast-forward a few life phases, and I found myself there in person with my recently-acquired husband on our honeymoon! We spent three weeks exploring every inch of Japan we could, delighting in all of its beautifully alien aspects.

Here are a few highlights:

Putting Ideas to Paper

I sketched several rough design drafts to get an idea of which potential elements and layouts would work best. Then I narrowed it down to just a few that I felt would best fit the client’s vision while also staying true to my artistic voice and posing an interesting execution challenge.

This piece would need to be made entirely from fused glass as opposed to leaded stained glass due to the complexity of detail I planned to incorporate.

I digitized my top three drafts into formal patterns and sent them to the client for feedback along with potential color palettes.

The client chose the design with the red and black archway below a clouded moon. This archway is known as a torii, which is a symbolic gateway marking the entrance to the sacred precincts of a Shintō shrine in Japan, and is meant to demarcate the boundary between the secular world and the sacred spirit world.

Going For a Test Run

Kilnforming glass is both an art and a science, and it’s always a collaborative effort between the artist and the medium. Even when every step of a fusing project is performed with the utmost care and precision, the glass itself becomes an active participant while it melts, sometimes resulting in wildly unexpected deviations from the plan.

Because of this, I take the time to perform small sample tests at the start of every new fusing project to observe whether the glass will behave and look as I expect it to during each stage of the process. I’ve learned the hard way that there are few things more frustrating than putting hours of effort into a piece only to have it ruined in the final fuse due to an unforeseen color change, position shift, bubble formation, etc.

In this case, I wanted to create the ornament’s background with a single in-line layer of glass to keep it as lightweight as possible, but I’d never tried fusing a circle within a ring before. I wasn’t sure if that strategy would result in a crisp, clean border or if it would look better to fuse two solid circles in a stack instead.

I also wanted to confirm which glass colors would make for the best bamboo stalks, and how far apart each stalk segment should be spaced to prevent them from melting into one other.

I set up three test samples to confirm my uncertainties:

• Border Sample A: A white circle in-line with a black ring

• Border Sample B: A white circle centered on top of a slightly larger black circle

• Bamboo Sample: Bamboo stalks of various colored glass scrap and frit, spaced at differing intervals

Post-firing, I saw that the in-line ring background strategy was indeed feasible, and that the bamboo segments could be spaced as close as 1mm apart without their melting together.

Hang On…Is That Torii Up to Code?

As I was about to begin work on the actual ornament, another aspect of the design caught my eye and made me feel one last sample test was needed.

Specifically, I was side-eyeing those two horizontal beam segments in my torii drawing and wondering,

“Will the thin vertical segment underneath prop up their centers enough to prevent them from drooping, or will they need additional support?”

I went back to my scraps and built a very rough torii structure that included two horizontal beams:

• A topmost beam, the middle of which is supported by a thin vertical segment

• A bottommost beam, the middle of which is supported by a long horizontal segment running nearly the width of the beam

While I was at it, I also placed black square pillar bottoms in differing positions to see which post-fuse style I preferred.

Post-firing, there was indeed a slight droop to the topmost horizontal beam whereas the bottommost one remained very straight.

The resulting curvature was slight enough not to impact the overall look, so I felt confident moving forward with the single vertical segment structure. However, a more intense firing schedule would likely cause a more severe droop, so I made a note not to go above the one used for this test sample with the actual ornament.

With a tried-and-true approach in place for all the key components of this piece, I was confident to start on the real thing!

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.

Related Studio Journal Entries

Related Thoughts

There’s no arguing that Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms have skyrocketed many an artist’s career to new heights. My own handmade art has gotten remarkable boosts via such channels.

However, at some point I think it’s important to put aside the temporary thrill of likes, views, and shares to ask,

“Am I using social media, or is it using me?”

Not-So-Fair Trade

Before the rise of the almighty algorithm, I had a symbiotic relationship with social media: I shared intriguing content that compelled people to spend more time on social platforms, while the platforms themselves spread my posts far and wide amongst their userbases, providing exposure to my work. It seemed a fair tradeoff—a few hours of time each week for a few new customers.

Then, after the sudden and seemingly synchronized preference of videos over images across all platforms, this tradeoff began to feel lopsided. Suddenly those few hours a week spent sharing carefully photographed works of art didn’t result in nearly as much viewership as before. So I turned the weekly effort into a daily one, and the thoughtful images into short videos with catchy soundtracks, as per the algorithm’s incessant demands. The frustrating result was that the rewards for my efforts appeared to become completely randomized. Often the videos I spent the most time on and was most proud of would be shunned, getting a couple thousand views at best while the viewership of videos I’d debated whether to post at all (because I felt they were mindless drivel) would skyrocket into the millions.

It drove me to start thinking about my art in terms of what would make the most shareable content instead of what would be the most enjoyable to create, even though that mindset went against my every principle and inclination.

I couldn’t help it—the algorithm had wormed its way into my subconscious.

A Slow Creep

Even worse, I started to feel its tentacles squirming into my everyday life. My favorite activities have always been ones that are difficult but that provide a significant sense of accomplishment (hence why I’ve opted to teach myself skills like web design and product photography instead of outsourcing them), and although learning the nuances of marketing my work on social media was initially rewarding, it eventually began to make me feel like I was regressing as a human being.

The more time I spent on social media, the more I noticed my attention span decreasing as I struggled to stay focused on books that I used to be able to read for hours on end. I caught myself thinking of potential posts instead of living in the moment. While out enjoying a beautiful beach day with my husband, watching dolphins swim just yards away, the inevitable thought would pop into my head: “Could this be…content?!”

I began to feel like a part of me was slipping away and being replaced with the dumbest and ugliest qualities of society.

I noticed many of my artistic peers were embroiled in a similar mental wrestling match. My feed was full of posts captioned as “snacks for the algorithm,” or “hopping on this trend to make the algorithm like me”, implying that the inauthenticity of regularly-scheduled posts with viral-worthy qualities was now a necessary evil we all had no choice but to partake in.

Coming Full Circle

It all started to feel eerily similar to the corporate environment I’d fled years earlier. Back when I worked as a technology consultant for a large, multi-national firm, there was a universally-held truth amongst all the employees (and probably amongst 99% of all employees everywhere) which was: we didn’t really want to be there. Sure, we tolerated being there. Heck, some of us even didn’t totally mind being there, but we all knew that the second we stopped being paid to be there would be the same second we’d dash out the door.

Social media today feels the exact same way—like a dreaded job all artists have to perform to pay the bills instead of the exciting adventure it started out as.

I always found it incredibly strange, almost to the point of being comical, that nearly all nine-to-fivers have this common, unspoken (or on the rare occasion, loudly proclaimed) agreement that we hate going to work, yet we’ll spend the majority of our waking lives there toiling away because “that’s just the way it is.” That concept was something I could never bring myself to accept, and was ultimately the reason I left my corporate career in favor of becoming a self-employed artist, and I think it’s also the reason I’ve stepped back from social media in recent years. I don’t have to continue to do something that makes me unhappy just because it’s the safest option and everyone else is choosing it. There’s always another way. 

Uncharted Waters

The ‘other way’ I’m taking a chance on this time is sharing long-form, high-quality content on a weekly-to-monthly basis that I’m creating because I want to, instead of a flood of daily, short-form posts that I’m creating because I feel like I have to just to stay afloat. I’ll be sharing it here, on my own domain, as opposed to on major social media apps because I no longer want to put hours of effort into meaningful content just to have the algorithm instantly bury it, or have people spend two seconds observing it before continuing their endless scroll.

I would rather have an audience of a handful of people with genuine interest and investment in my work than thousands who don’t really care to see or understand all the time, technique, and love that goes into each piece.

It would be incredibly naïve to think that I’ll be able to convince a large percentage of the followers I’ve accumulated across Instagram, Facebook, and the other social behemoths to leave their familiar spaces and make the arduous digital journey all the way here instead, but I think I can convince a few, and I think it’ll be worth it.

I’m not fully abandoning all social media (after all, it is an effective form of advertising despite all the negatives attached to it), but going forward I plan to no longer look at comments or messages, and to post much less frequently in those spaces, sharing just a few peeks into my projects instead of every step of the process. I’ll save all of the gritty, behind-the-scenes creation insights (a.k.a. all the good stuff) for here.

Maybe…

Maybe at the age of 32 I’m already a stubborn old hag that’s refusing to change with the times. Maybe I’ll lose all of my supporters over this transition and never sell another piece of art. Maybe I’ll be too happy to care.

A friendly reminder that I share details of my creation processes with the intent of empowering people with knowledge and techniques that may help them reach their full creative potential, not with the intent of enabling other artists to recreate my pieces. All of my designs are protected by copyright and are illegal to reproduce, reuse, or republish without my permission under any circumstances.