This past week one of the most important tools I use in my work went kaput. But, my technical difficulties led to a lot of interesting discoveries.

I value the saw as a tool because although my designs are generally chaotic patterns of color, I want to contain that chaos with a nice, crisp edge. I need a clean boundary in order to make the chaos work.

Earlier this year I decided to upgrade to a more powerful saw. When the new saw arrived the box was in pretty bad shape. I don’t think it could have made it another 100 feet. I reported the problem to the distributer just in case I ran into any problems in the future. A visual inspection of the saw didn’t reveal any damage. Looking back I should have returned the saw to the manufacturer, but I had so much work to do that I decided to take a chance that everything would be OK.

Initially I had a few challenges, especially when I was cutting smaller pieces. I chalked it up to working with more powerful equipment. Then one day everything I cut started to crack and shatter including glass that had never been fired! I noticed that the vibration level had increased. The whole unit was moving, but all the parts seemed to be attached properly.

I contacted the staff at His Glassworks, the distributer, and explained the problem and they worked with me to arrange for a replacement saw. They are extremely knowledgeable and have provided great service as we worked through this problem. It took a week for the new saw to get from California to Virginia. Since the saw weighed 100 pounds I decided to opt out of paying more for expedited shipping. I figured I could always rent a saw if I ran into troubles in the meantime.

As I looked around my saw-less studio at all of the orders I had to fill, and all of the pieces I needed to prepare for the upcoming Buyers Market show, and the fact that I need to be out of town the week of the 16^th. I thought “okay, I need a saw to do all of these things and even though they need to get done, I can’t do them now…what else can I make?”

I began thinking about getting ready to make plates, bowls, coasters, and wind chimes – all projects that I had put on the back burner because of the more pressing need of filling orders. I always find myself wanting to create a layers effect, so I began thinking how I could translate what I do with layers for all my jewelry pieces into these other forms. I ended up experimenting and creating some prototypes.

After I fired the pieces, I realized that my immediate thought was to cut them up and turn them into something else. I kept looking at the larger pieces and seeing their components rather than the whole. For example, even though one plate was kind of boring on its own, it could be a really interesting as component parts for another piece.

The smaller coasters, however, made me really happy because I could see them as a cohesive piece rather than potential for smaller pieces. Because I work on a small scale, I noticed that my challenge was finding out how to translate the details I love into a larger format. How do I create larger pieces without seeing just their components?

Stay tuned for pictures of the results of the inventions of my necessity!

P.S. The saw arrived on Friday and after dealing with a bad motor and a failed water pump (thanks Murphy’s Law)… my husband managed to change out the motor and the water pump. I have been cutting like crazy! And saw #3 is on its way.

July 7th, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL