Sapphireblue.com Presents: Adventures in Dangerous Art (I Am Jack's Complete Lack of Buyer's Remorse)

I discovered a few days ago that I would be one measly $3.50 length of lead short of what is necessary to finish the last transom. Today, in order to procure the measly length, I undertook the half-hour-or-so drive to Kensington. While waiting patiently at Weisser for my lead to be pulled, I noticed they had all these foot-square pieces of a swirly iridescent blue lying in stacks on the worktables, and great sheets of the stuff leaning against the vertical glass bins lining the walls. I paced around and eyed the glass, pretending not to. It became inevitable that I would take some home at the point I decided to go ahead and ask what the glass was.

They said it was a Spectrum glass. I/339-6S, to be exact, which is their Dark Blue/White, Wispy... except iridized. Spectrum's website doesn't give color chips for the iridescent variations, going on about how tough it is to photograph it properly.

I tried my hand at it, and believe I did okay. You really need two pictures to get a good idea, though:

pretty like an oil slick!

This is how the glass looks in reflected light. Here you can see the shiny iridescence that coats the glass's surface.

yet surprisingly blue

Putting the glass against a window in order to view the light it transmits, you can see that the base color of this glass is a transparent cobalt blue, which is finely swirled with opaque white.

Super, super cool. The person behind the counter at Weisser said they were just getting it in, and if I'd come in half an hour earlier, I would have missed it. Even though I have no idea what I'm going to do with this pretty blue glass, I'm glad I happened in when I did.

Posted by Michelle on January 14, 2003 04:40 PM

No clue, Sarah. The only other project idea I have in mind for after I finish the transoms is to redo these two wall sconces in our bedroom, and if Don hates the iridescent glass, it won't get used there. I'm not sure it'd work there anyway, for lamps and stuff you really want a more opaque glass to diffuse the light, I think.

I'll come up with something though :)

Posted by: Michelle on January 15, 2003 10:55 AM

Have mercy on Blossom/Josh. He just had his wisdom teeth yanked. It's prolly the Percoset talking.

Anyway, I never said I hated the iridescent blue/pink/yellow/purple/teal oil-slick looking glass. It's just not something I would've picked. I'm sure my brilliant, sweet girl will make wonderful use of it.

Posted by: Don on January 17, 2003 11:20 PM

I love the blue glass. Cobalt's my favorite color BTW. So if you just need to make some gorgeous thing to continue to practice your technique and then want to give it away...I'm your girl. (winks)

Seriously, even to my untrained eye, your work looks great, and increasingly more flawless.

Posted by: Stephanie on January 26, 2003 11:46 PM

Thank you so much, Stephanie, for your selfless, almost martyr-like, offer :>

And thank you for the compliment---"flawless" is pushing it but I try to get closer to that state all the time.

Posted by: Michelle on January 28, 2003 12:30 PM