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The
Pushing Technique
By
Robert Morey
The
technique of pushing a rod of glass into a gather of clear glass is one I
use often. This was originally shown to me by Brian Kerkvliet when I
attended his " Milli Madness" workshop. 
It is used to form mushrooms,
jellyfish, flower stamens, and many other things inside a clear gather of
glass. I will describe the process of creating a mushroom pendant to
illustrate the technique, as that is the way it was first shown to me.
The
Prep Work
The
prep work consists of pulling two canes: a twisted
cane, and a stripped cane. You will also need a simple little millefiore
chip, for the tip of the 'push'.
The
Technique
Start
by attaching your millefiore chip to the tip of the stripped cane. I
preheat the millefiore chip on a hot plate. I use tweezers to pick up the millefiore. Heat the chip and the cane in a sharp, small, neutral flame
and join them together. Apply heat gently to the tip until the
chip fuses to the cane and forms a ball. Keep it warm by flashing
it in the flame from time to time.
Now,
turn the flame up to a larger neutral flame and form a gather on the end
of a 10mm clear rod. Form it into a tear drop shape either with marver or
by heating and holding it vertically to allow it to droop. Allow the clear
gather to chill momentarily, then heat the bottom third. Just as the tip
of the gather approaches white-hot and becomes runny, pick up the millefiore cane and heat the tip of it to orange and remove it from the
flame, keeping the gather in the flame simultaneously. Just as the millefiore cane passes from orange to dark red, remove the clear gather
from the flame. Hold the clear rod with the gather pointing down. Push the
tip of the millefiore cane straight up into the gather to a depth of about
1/4 inch. Wait for a second to let the glass flow around the cane
and eliminate air bubbles. Then push the cane the rest of the way into the
gather. As it hits the cooler upper section of the gather, it will roll
outward, forming a mushroom. Pull down slightly at the end of the push,
when the glass stops moving.
Let
the gather cool just enough to stiffen and then melt off the bottom of the
stripped cane. Pick up the twisted cane and heat and wrap it around the
end of the gather where the stripped cane was. Twist the twisted cane as
you apply it so as to twist it tighter. Then use a four or a 5mm clear rod
to wrap around the gather at the bottom to even out the shape. As
you are doing all these things you must reheat the 10mm clear handle were
it joins the tear drop gather. This point wants to shock and crack. If it
does crack, and it often does, attach a punty to the bottom of the gather
and fuse them back together in the flame.
At
this point I pick the side that looks best. Heat the side of the gather
opposite the �good side� and lay it down in some aventurine frit. Melt
the frit in and add a background color. Flatten the gather slightly
(not so much as to crush the mushroom) and form it into a pleasing shape.
Attach a punty to the 
bottom of the gather. Heat the rod at the top of the
gather, remove it from the flame, and pull it out to five to 6mm in
diameter. I let this tail cool until it is stiff, then melt most
of it off, leaving a � to 3/4 inch long thin section to bend into a loop.
Reheat the tail and use a pair of round needlenose jewelry pliers to bend
it into a loop. Touch it to the back of the bead then tug it straight. Heat the point where the loop touches the body of the gather to
fuse it all together. While the loop is cooling for a few seconds, heat
the pliers in the torch. When the loop is stiff, grab it with the pliers
and snap off the punty on the other end of the pendant. Holding it with
the pliers, flame the pendant until the punty mark is smoothed out. When the whole thing is cool enough not on take on shelf marks,
put it in the annealer.
Jellyfish
The
jellyfish pendant is only a little more difficult to make. We will cover
having multiple occurrences of the pushing technique in the same piece so
we can have more then one jellyfish in a bead.
The
jellyfish has two parts: the mantle that is formed by creating a millefiore, and the tentacles that are made of a
multi-layer stripped cane.
The
millefiore for the mantle is something I still play around with. There are
so many different types of jellyfish. Store-bought millefiore can be used
but I will describe my latest experiments, so you can give them a try if
you like.
I
have been experimenting with using alabastro
glass in the mantle millefiore chip. It has a nice translucent quality to it. But
it is also prone to
thermal shock and must be preheated in the kiln to a temperature of
1000degF or the stripes of alabastro pop off the base rod. Try coral or
red in the milli as well.
The
cane for the tentacles is started by first making two filigrees. A gather
of white is cased over thickly with clear glass and pulled down to 3mm.
The same is done with a gather of alabastro white. Put these two stringers
aside. Next, make a gather of light pink opaque and roll it in gold
adventurine. Case it over with gold pink (rubino oro), heat, and pull it
down to 4mm. Put that aside as well.
Now,
make a gather of clear glass and stripe the gold aventurine/pink cane down
four sides. Stripe clear over it to encase it. Lay on longitudinal stripes
of the two white filigree stringers, alternating with each other all the
way around the gather. Apply by heating a stripe on the gather and one
side of the filigree stringer, then lay the stringer on gently and cut it
off at the end of the gather with end nippers. The stringers are applied
this way to keep them round, so they look more like tentacles. Fill this
out with clear to form a cylinder, taking care to keep the white filigree
stringers round. Heat and pull the whole thing out to three to 4mm in
diameter. This is your tentacle cane.
The
jellyfish are made in much the same way as a mushroom. Place a dot of
opaque white on the end of the tentacle cane. Fuse a chip of the mantle millefiore on top of the white dot at the top of the tentacle cane. Make a
gather of clear glass and push the cane in, just as you did with the
mushroom pendant. At the end of the push the stripped cane is snapped off
with end nipper pliers. Build up the clear at the end of the gather so
that the jellyfish appears to float in the clear glass.
After
the first jellyfish is completed, attach a punty to the bottom of the
gather and melt off the original handle. Set the gather aside in a
1000degF kiln to keep it from shocking. Make another jellyfish in a
gather. Retrieve the first gather from the kiln and join the two together.
This double gather is heated and shaped and the bottom handle is removed.
Add a �sea floor� by inserting a gold, green, or blue piece of
adventurine. Add other millefiore to simulate other sea life. Apply some
green twisties to the back. Add a piece of blue dicro to the back and
apply cobalt blue transparent over it. (I
learned these last few techniques from the Patti Walton Aquarium
video.)
Finally,
shape the gather, make a
sturdy loop, pop off the punty and anneal it.
About
the Artist
I
have been flameworking glass for six years. The only formal training I
have had was a workshop with Brian Kerkvliet ("Milli Madness"). I have
surfed the internet, read books, and learned from every person I have
worked with or near. For the most part I have experimented much, failed
often, persevered through my problems, and adapted some techniques to make
them work for me. The alchemy of working glass in the flame will always
keep my interest.
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