tessa.yvonne.morrison.

Clint Prints Logo Fused-Glass Piece

tessa.morrison. — Fri, 04 May 2012 03:36:14 +0000

Here is a fused glass piece I made from “float” glass, a.k.a., your standard window glass. The technique used to create the squid involves kiln carving and glass glazes. It is the logo for local gig poster artist, Clint Wilson. I nicknamed the mascot “Squidly”, inspired I know. Unfortunately this adorable cephalopod broke clear in half, but I was able to fix it with some serious UV glue. You can still see the crack, but its still a fun piece regardless. The dimensions are roughly 13X15″.

Click to view slideshow.

Richard Parrish Color Theory Workshop

tessa.morrison. — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:39:22 +0000

Last Wednesday I finished a color theory fused glass workshop at Helios Kiln Glass Studio. The workshop lasted five days from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. The workshop was taught by visiting instructor Richard Parrish from Bozeman, Montana. If you’ve ever seen his work, it is beautifully designed, composed, and executed, which isn’t all too surprising given his being an architect-turned-glass artist.After stopping by the studio last year when he was teaching this same class I came to the conclusion that I had to take it: not only as a general refresher in color theory, but also to better understand how different colored opaque, transparent, and tinted glass interact with one another. (F.Y.I. glass does not mix like paint and can and probably will do weird things if you haven’t experimented enough to know what to expect).The workshop was fun and it was equally involved and labor intensive. I also didn’t realize just how physically and mentally exhausting it could be to stare at bright colors for hours at a time. We had several assignments to complete every day and had access to every color of BullsEye glass, with a few restrictions (no black or white).

We had a great group of people (there were 8 students, including myself) and we all learned as much from each other as we did the instructor. The point wasn’t to make an awesome finished cold-worked piece, but rather learn as much about color interaction as possible. These pictures are of the larger tiles I did after doing numerous smaller test tiles.Richard Parrish will be back to teach a design class as well. I am definitely looking forward to it!

Collages

tessa.morrison. — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:32:05 +0000

Found these while rummaging through some old boxes my dad dropped off the last time he was in town. These pieces are some of my first and very few explorations into collage.

Conversation Over Dinner. 2004.

You can tell which items I added to the table because they don’t cast a shadow.

Phonelines. 2004.

They are images cut out old National Geographics.

New Studio Space!

tessa.morrison. — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 02:52:13 +0000

My jewelry design project, REfused Designs Studios, has a new home! Here is a picture of the set-up at the new studio space off of Northloop. Its about 400 square feet, wood floors, and one wall is covered in a mirror. The space was used previously as a dance studio where they taught bellydance, pilates, and yoga. I’m sharing the space with painter Pat Taylor. We might be in the West Austin Studio Tour this year. From what I hear it’s the Spring version of the East Austin Studio Tour and it basically encompasses the rest of Austin. I’ll probably use the space for larger fabric sculpture, puppet making, and perhaps some filming. I’ve had an idea for a film project that I really want to do.

Leah Edwards Album Cover

tessa.morrison. — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:03:42 +0000

Taking a break from the fused glass posts, friend and musician, Leah Edwards has commissioned me to design her album cover. Originally from Texas, I met her in Austin while we were both interns for the Downtown Austin Alliance, doing P.R. and street teaming for their 4th season of PBS/KLRU TV show “DOWNTOWN”. We were thrown into a room together to bundle up thousands of postcards for promotions, and instantly hit it off. Now she resides in Nashville, Tennessee where she is attending grad school and pursuing her musical career.

Her music is best described as Folk/Americana. I did a couple of designs for her and this seems to be the one we are going forward with:

I designed a similar font, but she ended up going with one designed by another friend of hers. I need to get their name to give them credit. This design is based on a well-known Lewis Carroll illustration of Alice.

Here is a poster design I did for Leah a few years back for her to promote her shows:

I keep saying that Leah is going to be the next Regina Spektor. She is one of the most kind-hearted people I know and she puts her all into her music. I only have tons of love for this wondrous lady.

Check her out at: http://www.myspace.com/leahmarieedwards

I think there is a video of us singing in her car while running errands for our internship. Fun times…

Sundown T-shirt Design

tessa.morrison. — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:27:45 +0000

Sundown is a Columbus-based, psych-folk-rock band that is comprised of my brother, Dustin White, T. K. Webb, Vug Arakas, and Chris Pierce. They will be in Austin for SXSW this year. Dusty asked me to draw up a design for their shirts. He gave me a few references and here’s what I came up with:

She’s 50% Farrah Fawcett, 25% Ralph Bakshi, 15% pin-up, and 10% Sailor Jerry tattoo.

Fused Glass Latticework

tessa.morrison. — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:40:53 +0000

I sat in on a glass fusing class at Helios on Anderson Mill and we were making what they have coined “glass latticework.” It’s a non-traditional technique using strips of glass fused together with large spaces in between. This technique has a more overall organic shape after it is fired than what I generally lean towards with my jewelry and glass art designs, but I figure it’s good to try everything.

Piece prior to fusing.

I forgot to take a picture of the second step before slumping it. So the the pictures on here are the first and third steps of the process: pre-firing and post-slumping. After it slumps it will look like a glass basket of sorts.

It seems that one of my corners came undone during firing, so it didn’t do what I expected. So now I have a glass basket with a long hoop for hanging. Which is a neat accident, as far as accidents go.

One side looks like a human ribcage, complete with upside down xiphoid process.

If you’re interested in learning to make fused glass, check out Helios.com’s Beginners class schedule.

Glass Combing

tessa.morrison. — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:37:24 +0000

When you create fused glass you never work with an open flame. Its all done in the kiln, but there is glass combing, which is where you open the kiln while it is still at glass melting temperatures and run a metal rake or hook through the glass to get cool effects. Even then, there is not an open flame, there are metal elements in the sides and top (depending on your kiln)producing the heat. This technique is not unlike dragging a knife through the icing on your brownies to create fancy patterns.

This was my first glass combing piece. It consists of pimento red, forest green, marigold, and clear Bullseye glass.

Picture courtesy of Helios Kiln Glass Studio.

The glass in its glowing, molten and pliable state. Photo courtesy of Karen Tarlow.

Me combing glass at 1700 degrees. Photo courtesy of Karen Tarlow.

Teal & Grey “Handkerchief”

tessa.morrison. — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:57:07 +0000

This was my first fused glass handkerchief, it gets that name from the shape it makes after being slumped.

After firing. Before slumping.

2nd Annual Iron Fuser Submission

tessa.morrison. — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:26:32 +0000

This large glass “handkerchief” was my submission for the Second Annual Iron Fuser II Competition, its an national competition put on by the glass studio I work at. There was a first place and several different categories of awards (which were made of glass). There were 39 entries submitted this past year. Besides some rules on dimension limits and having to use the contents of a glass pack, we were given free reign on what we could submit.

Photo courtesy of Paul & Karen Tarlow

It sold to a customer based in North Carolina. Pretty excited to do the Iron Fuser again this year. Wonder what the first place award will look like…?