Making a Murano glass leaf

I just returned from visiting my glass factories in Italy and I thought I would shed a little light on part of the hand made, mouth blown, magical process of making glass objects.  I will do a couple of postings of other processes I find fascinating.  I hope this gives a renewed interest in the fascinating world of hand made, mouth blown glass.  I believe it is a little bit of magic and passion in our high tech world.

The molten glass is poured into a metal leaf form or shape.  This form will stop the now liquid glass from running all over and this will keep the thickness at the authentic voluptuous level.

The molten glass is scored to make the leaf veins.

The form is removed and the leaf is examined and begins the process of being curved.

The molten leaf is slid onto the warmed form.

The leaf will stay for a very short time here before it goes into to oven so that it can cool slowly, avoiding any cracks.

The finished piece.

I hope you find this as amazing as I do.  I have been working in the factories for longer then I would like to say and it never gets old.

TFC NEW PLACEMATS

Here are a few of our newest additions to the Thomas Fuchs Creative collection and an entirely new departure from 3D objects.  It has been an amazing experience to work with our new manufacture and the exciting new material of glass beads.  As you may know by seeing my previous designs, in glass, wood, metal, etc., I love texture.  I am just getting my feet wet but soon you will see a lot more in an array of beaded placemats utilizing the depth and texture (and COLOR) you can get from this new medium for me.

These will all be available at Barneys New York in early Fall. 

Photograph be David Diesing

http://www.daviddiesing.com/

Portraits

Character

Being photographed is sometimes an enlightening moment.  A moment captured in time.   Is this how others see us? 

Although there were probably 200 pictures taken at these photo shoots I believe that these photographers really did capture their muses character.   

Dali

Bruce Lee

Darwin

YSL

Ian McKellen - Nadav Kander

Isamu Noguchi with Undine (Nadja), 1925

Oscar Wilde

Truman Capote

Calder

Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012

Louis Vuittom Fall/Winter 2012

How could you not be inspired by Louis Vuitton’s Fall/Winter 2012 collection?  The richness and elegance was beyond compare this season.  Look to the Fall to see if I was able to capture this richness in my own collection. 

All of these above images are from “The Sartorialist” blog, one of my favorites.  Click here to see more images. 

Sorry I have been a little out of touch but my New Years resolution is to Blog more.  That was a joke, kind of.  So I will begin again, with trepidatious steps. 

I have been very fortunate in my career(s) and life to be in very grand and stunning interiors.  I often wonder if the full time inhabitants ever feel intimidated by the building and their surrounds.   Although we all probably have our grand days, everyday life sometimes asks us for humility.