Process

Kiln-fusing techniques include shaping glass using the heat of a kiln. Pieces of dichroic glass and/or art glass are cut and arranged into pleasing patterns and shapes. The pieces are then placed in a kiln and heated to around 1450 degrees until the pieces stick or “fuse" together. After several hours of slow cooling, the glass is removed from the kiln, cleaned and either further refined and refired (some pieces up to three times), or are ready for display.

Dichroic Glass

" Dichroic" is defined as the property of having more than one color, especially when viewed from different angles. Dichroic glass was originally invented in the 1950's for the space industry. Dichroic glass is created in a high temperature chamber in a vacuum furnace. Thin layers of metallic oxides, such as titanium, silicon, and magnesium are deposited upon the surface of the glass. The coating is transparent, rigid and stable and withstands temperatures as high as 3000 degrees.

This "coated" glass only became available outside of the scientific community in recent years. Before dichroic color was developed, there was not a man-made material that possessed true iridescence. Heated dichroic glass glimmers and changes color when viewed from different angles. The front-lit color is referred to as the reflected color and the back-lit color as the transmitted color. In contrast to an ordinary piece of glass, the light hits the surface and enters the glass, part of the color spectrum is absorbed, energy emitting from the glass is the color spectrum that is unabsorbed. Neither words, nor even a photograph can do justice to the beauty of dichroic glass. The way the light plays with the colors must be seen in person to be appreciated.