Dalayce Smith
/ FibreGlass:
Fibre Analogous
Glass Working Methods

3/29/2021

01 - About the Artist

Dalayce Smith is an engineer turned artist who has a passion for ‘making’ in a multitude of media. With a background in mathematics and engineering, her work is approached with an eye toward empirical discovery and meticulously executed process with an occasional balancing deviation into complete kitsch. Dalayce received her BFA in glass in 2018 and continued on to obtain a BFA in fibre in 2020; a master’s degree in craft is inevitably in her future somewhere. She currently resides in SW Calgary but has her gaze firmly set on a studio in the East Kootenays.

02 - About the Work

As a recent graduate with degrees in both fibre and glass, it was inevitable that the work from one studio practice would cross over and impact the other. The inspiration to leverage the processes from one medium to the other began as an effort to create a unique style of working with glass. Glass is a traditional craft material with a long history and it is a difficult thing to try to generate new and creative methods within such an established artistic context.

An Exploration of Analogous Methods Across Disparate Media.

The Bargello Chair as a Starting Point

After completing my BFA in glass and transitioning to a BFA in fibre, it seemed fitting that the work I was creating in my elective glass classes should also focus on my new major area of study. I had always been intrigued by the geometry and mathematical precision of a style of needlepoint called Bargello. Bargello uses adjacent blocks of straight satin stitch to generate dynamic patterns and I felt that it had great potential as a model for a glass analogy.

In the chair project I applied the Bargello process to glass rather than simply creating the color pattern with larger pieces of sheet glass in a traditional mosaic style. I stitched the Bargello design in wool on canvas first to ensure I had an understanding of the technique and its structure. I then developed a process to emulate Bargello in glass where each individual lengthwise “stitch” is a small tile laid out vertically one at a time next to its neighbour to create the design. These hundreds of small glass pieces were then fused together in the kiln into a solid panel to be used as the back rest in a custom-built oak chair.

The use of glass in a furniture item opens a Duchampian discussion about the balance between the realms of function, decoration and art. I am intrigued by the line where an object crosses from utility to art and continue to explore the idea that an object might be both.

The Bargello Chair has been shown as part of the 2019 Emerging Artists show with the Alberta Society of Artists and was also selected for the student showcase at the 2019 Glass Art Society show.

The successful response to the Bargello Chair project prompted me to consider other fibre art references that could potentially be applied to glass. The result is the current series of four diptychs that provide a 12” x 12” reference work in the original medium along with the related glass work inspired by the fibre process.

Bargello Chair, 2019
Fused Glass, Wool on Canvas, Oak.

Counted Cross Stitch is a needlepoint technique where coloured embroidery floss is used to create a pixelated design on a geometrically woven fabric called Aida cloth. The colour palette is often simplified and the charts are blocked out into grid segments of 10 x 10 stitches. Each stitch consists of a pair of overlapping diagonal stitches creating an “X” that corresponds to the placement of the colour on a prepared design chart.

In the glass analogy, the cross stitch process is emulated by using a traditional pattern chart and making the “stitches” using thin strands of colored glass (appropriately) called stringers. The tip of the stringer is melted in a torch and used to place molten dots on a section of white backing glass that acts as the canvas. The nature and thermal sensitivity of glass does not allow for all dots to be placed on one large background and a grid of 6x6 stitches is used rather than the traditional 10x10 in order to facilitate ease in the torch. The completed tiles are laid out in order on another sheet of fusible glass and tack fired in the kiln to form the final image.

Glass Cross Stitch Outcome: This method is faithful to the stitch by stitch nature of cross stitch and deserves additional investigation. Experiments with a full fuse of the patterned sections to allow the dots to melt in fully to the base sheet may provide a less pixelated end result and would be more true to the placement of the embroidered stitches that are in contact with each other.

Cross Stitch

Layout of finished glass tiles after annealing

Shibori is a traditional Japanese dyeing technique that uses intricately folded and/or bound fabric with indigo and potassium dyes. For a folded design the pattern on the resulting cloth is based on the underlying geometry, but is softened by the liquid nature of the dyes used and the unpredictability of absorption and seepage throughout the material layers.

To allow for the same relationship between the precision of the base geometry and the flow of the liquid found in Shibori dyeing, sheet glass in the colors of indigo blue and potassium brown is fused into “folded” stacks to mimic the folded fabric prior to immersion in the dye vat. The glass stacks are placed in the kiln on an indigo blue base sheet and heated to a molten state, allowing the glass to flow and move under its own agency to create interactions.

Glass Shibori Outcome: While the theoretical analogy in this method is strong, the spacing between the blocks was overly generous. The use of more or larger glass stacks for the size of panel would create more interaction between the blocks as they melt. Additional experimentation with pattern layouts to match actual Shibori folds and clamping would be interesting as well.

Shibori

Glass stacks laid out on Indigo glass sheet

Quilting is the tradition of piecing small scraps of fabric together into a geometric pattern to create a larger textile piece that is sewn to batting and backing to create a decorative and warm blanket. Paper piece quilting uses pre-cut paper forms that the fabric is sewn around and are then stitched together by hand. Paper piece quilting allows for unique patterns that are not possible with machine quilting.

Glass quilting is very much the same as fabric quilting. Glass scraps are cut into precise geometric shapes and then joined together at the edges. In the case of glass, the pieces are all laid out together in the desired final pattern in the kiln and the seams are all joined at the same time in a single fuse firing.

Glass Quilting Outcome: This is the only glass analogous processes used that is actually easier than the original reference method. However, there is a missing element in the glass process as quilts always have another layer of stitching that anchors the quilt top to the batting and backing. One possible solution to explore is the addition of an etched surface pattern that would not change the colour of the glass pattern blocks, but would reference the placement of quilted top stitching.

Paper Piece Block Quilting

Defining the process for glass weaving proved to be the most challenging of the four methods. The rigid nature of the material makes it impossible to interlock in its natural state. Cutting thin strips of sheet glass to uniform size and slumping them in the kiln using a specially designed mold creates the over/under form that is needed to emulate the warp threads in a loom woven textile. Once the warp pieces of glass are laid out, additional strips of glass are passed through the created openings, one at a time, like the weft threads in woven cloth. The capturing of warp material in between an alternating up and down weft is the fundamental structure of plain weave. Once the interlocking is complete, the piece is fired carefully in the kiln again to melt the warp and weft just to the point of joining but without losing the texture and definition.

Glass Weaving Outcome: There is no arguing that the completed glass piece is truly woven. The uniformity of the weave structure, however, would benefit from some modifications to the dimensions on the warp mold. As there are other glass artists (See Mark Lewanski, Eric Markow, Thom Norris) already creating exemplary plainweave in glass, I would like to leverage my knowledge of weaving to work with more complex structures in glass such as twill.

Weaving

As a method for exploring novel approaches to working with one material, it was interesting to apply the techniques and pattern references from a completely different medium. Trite phrases like “thinking outside of the box” become more a matter of taking the thoughtful contents of one box and applying it in a scientific, hypothetical manner to another. I consider the experimentation across media to be a success and will continue to refine and expand the methods developed and to consider additional fibre art practices such as silkscreen printing and appliqué sewing as future inspirations for creative glass work.

Dalayce Smith / FibreGlass:Fibre Analogous Glass Working Methods