Michael
O'Keefe
ARTIST STATEMENT
Every material
contributes a unique visual dialogue.
For Glass it is the transparency. As a sculptural material it stands alone:
what defines the work is not necessarily dependent on the outside surfaces.
Since this interior space is of great interest to me, I have chosen to
create sculptures that draw the viewer in.
While experimenting with color, I have previously used silver nitrate
and gold chloride to define that inner surface, my current work employs
dichroic coating for colors. When the glass is slumped, the interior layers
bend to reveal a remarkable variety of light reflection and colors. This
causes the piece to change as the viewer moves around it.
Technique
The pieces are created in stages with two grind and polish operations and three oven stages.
First the glass is sized in the oven. It is heated to a temperature where it will soften, in a mold that will give the desired shape and thickness. These pieces are ground and polished, then stacked with the dichroic coated ones (previously coated) inserted in-between. The glass is returned to the oven where it is fused into a solid block.
After trimming,
the block is put back into the oven where it is slumped. This slumping
is done by holding the glass off the bottom of the oven. The oven is heated
to a temperature that makes the center drop. This pulls the color down
causing it to bend. It also pulls the colors apart to form patterns on
the interior surfaces. This will cause the light to come off at different
angles, and the color changes as the viewer moves around the finished
piece.
Because glass needs to be heated and cooled slowly, each of the oven steps
takes a week; thicker pieces
(4 ½ - 5 “) take longer.
At this point the oven work is done and the final cutting and polishing begins. The desired shape is roughed out on a diamond saw then it is ground. First with a 60 grit diamond bonded disc, then with the following sequence: 140, 270, 320, and 600 grit discs. At this point it is polished using cerium oxide.
The entire
oven and grinding process may take one month. During this process as much
as half the glass is cut off the initial block.