Most of the glass that comes to me needs to be "adjusted" to fit into place. Sometimes the chipped plates that arrive as raw materials will be carved down pretty good before they fit! Every time I split a piece of Heisey, I sigh a little. It's hard to "break" these beautiful things! Even if they are chipped or already broken. The end result, however, is a magnificent piece that is so much better than I was hoping for! Each little broken piece, each little plate or saucer or cup or handle... everything has a place and all the chips and scratches are gone. The broken pieces have new life now. They're going to sparkle together like they've never done before.
It sure takes a lot of work to get that sparkle just right, though. This is what it looks like while I'm using a special machine to slice a plate to the exact right dimensions. You see, I just need the starry center of this plate.
This machine lets me carve into the glass, ever so slowly, in more than just straight lines. It also doesn't mind if the glass I'm cutting into isn't very flat - as most of the pieces I'm fine-tuning aren't!
And here is the final product. The starry center of the plate, which I needed, is free to find a home in the panels now.
But what about the outer ring? Well, the "leftover" plate will either fill in elsewhere or it will go back to the museum to be melted into marbles or fused into other beautiful ideas and creations!
And now, back to slicing! There is a lot more work to be done!
