Monday, May 16, 2011

Bob Weinberg of Huntington, New York passes this golden piece of information along.

Gold flecked glass made in Murano is called “adventurene” (not sure of spelling in Italian) and is made from copper. reason alleged for calling it adventurene is that the glass blower is never sure how it will come out so it is an “adventure.” Fantastic new gold pieces are being made with this technique but only a few makers have mastered it for a high degree of repetitiveness.

Glass artist Richard Jolley is using silver and gold leaf in his pieces – gold leaf is spread over a hot glass shape by hand(1800 to 2200 degrees), cased in another layer of glass and expanded to break apart the gold leaf into flakes of random and/or fairly equal flecks so it is possible to use gold in hot glass without it “melting” in any bad way. I spoke to artists doing this work this week. I also recall seeing Bohemian shapes that used gold leaf which made items very much like the Carder piece shown however I do not recall the name of the techniques.

Robert Weinberg

www.cardersteubenclub.org

2011 Carder Steuben Club annual Symposium will be held at The Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY from September 15-17, 2011.

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