Types of Decorative Glass

Meagan: Decorative glass come is numerous different varieties and Marilee Burnside from Louisville glasswork has been kind enough to teach me all about it.

I am hitting the road, searching for answers and finding great design. It is a quest for beauty, function and of course inspiration.

The first type of decorative glass is blown glass which in many ways is the most fun to watch being made.

Marilee: The glass that you see here is made down in the hot shop at the glass blowers. Those artists make their glass from the raw materials down in the hot shop. They take a greedy sanding mixture, put it in the furnace, melt it down to pre molten blast and then take action on the glass to create their art.

Meagan: Really? So they actually blow that thing.

Marilee: Yes.

Meagan: And it is different because it uses different types of glass, some other types?

Marilee: It is, absolutely. The glass that she used down in the hot shop is a very soft soda lime glass that is made, that has very low melting point and has to be slowly cooled in order to condone the shape and to get the result.

Meagan: The second type of decorative glass is flame work glass which could best be described as drawing with glass.

Marilee: For example, the art that you see here is made from a very special type of glass that the artist buy in either tubes or rods, cabers silicate, folks might know it otherwise as Pyrex.

Meagan: Really?

Marilee: Yes, so it is a very sturdy, very hard type of glass. It requires a much higher melting temperature about 5500 degrees Fahrenheit. And artists who use the heat from the very hot torch, it is filled with propane and oxygen, and they melt these rods of glass into beautiful sculpted shape that you see here using their hands as tools, the rods and blast and gravity.

Meagan: The third type of decorative glass is stain glass and architectural glass which could our view would be the most impressive type of decorative glass.

Marilee: Those are type of glass that you would see created here in our facility would be stain glass art or art made in the architectural glass at the CVO. Those artists by glass from manufacturers in flat shapes, different textures and colors and sizes, they may cut the glass into specific patterns to make the stain glass hard or they can use one working technique using a hot helm to melt texture designed pattern into the glass or to change the overall shape of the glass.

Meagan: Each type of decorative glass has its own personality and function, whether to vase, bother stopper or giant chandelier. And knowing how each type is made only adds to its beauty.

For extra information about where I have been and what I have learned, visit my web site www.AsktheDecorator.com.