Working through Crustacean Frustration

Living on and swimming a reef for 5 years was wondrous. The corals, colors and marine life observed is great inspiration for my fused glass projects.

Finally finding the courage to tackle making a fused glass crab that has dimension and appears to be standing instead of a flat piece required a lot of work. Even the greatest of glass artists will tell you that you can't always predict the end result of fusing a project. How much will the glass expand or contract? Will the colors hold true, etc.?

This project started with cutting more than 100 pieces of glass in various shapes and sizes. The body and legs consisted of 3 layers of glass. The shell consisted of 2 layers of glass. The eyes were made separately.

The center part of the crab is 5 layers deep. There were 4 fusing sessions (over 80 hours in the kiln) required to make the crab. Each body part required grinding due to volume expansion. Without grinding, the crab pieces would not have connected and fused properly resulting in a somewhat unidentifiable object.

My next attempt at making a crab will be a blue crab. I will try tweaking the fusing schedule to see if it will help to cut back on the hours and hours of grinding each piece to fit.