I wasn’t ready to run the kiln yet, but had some time to melt glass. I got tired of pulling stringers, so I made this little green spider out of glass. (If this paragraph is gibberish – read below!) The span of the legs is about 2 inches, so it is a pretty big spider. I decided that I needed a mascot in my studio, so he will now supervise my work.
A kiln is a device used to soak glass at a certain temperature and to cool glass slowly. I helps to prevent stresses from building in the glass which in turn should make the glass stronger. I dislike turning it on and then going leaving it while I have to go run errands for hours.
Stringers are threads of glass used to decorate beads or other glass objects. They are made by heating a glob (gather) of glass and then pulling it into various thickness. I have about a month’s worth of stringers all ready.
I discovered that the little fellow is pretty durable. I grabbed one of the legs while it was still hot and my reflex was to drop it. It bounced on my workbench, but did not break. Had it broken – I would have been sad.
Rosemarie Hanus usually makes beads, not spiders in her home studio in Bath Township, Ohio, USA. View some of here work as Spawn of Flame (and here).