Untitled: connecting layers of confusion, sensation and transformation

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Arte e Ciência do Vidro

I believe that glass is a higher substance than most materials. It is a material reflecting humanity. For me, glass is at once a symbolic personification of human beings and at once a state of complete confusion. It is hard to work with. You either have to be talented or patient in order to pass through all the challenges to achieve the highest point of development and harmony. It is like working to be in balance with the material. At times I see it as my own reflection. Maybe I was chosen to be here. Glass making is at some point its own philosophical school, with its systems and meditation, with the training and frustration. It is its own world, its own orbital where we are spinning. Some are closer to the core and some are farther away, but working with glass demands that we all go through the layers to get to the core. It is not maybe as straight as we might hope and doesn’t quite fit the scientific rules. Glass seems to me to be a labyrinth with a goal of the 8th chakra, being a Master in glass making. Two years ago I chose to move to Portugal and work with glass. Looking at all the wonderful glass hand-made objects around me gave me a sense of excitement. I could not believe that I would be able to do the same. The strong desire to achieve new techniques left me excited while at the same time confused and frustrated. That feeling carried with me through the whole time of the program. The state of confusion, insecurity in my skills, and possibilities were constantly changing. But it never disappeared. I now propose to explain my personal transformation, layer by layer, as I also work to explain how a young lady from Russia meets glass art and glass science, and attempts to understand their interactions. In this work colored glass was produced using the gold nanoparticles and the layer by layer deposition of polyelectrolytes through dip coating in order to apply it to artworks that use glass as a medium. Gold was used aiming to obtain a range of colors from purple to blue. The gold nanoparticles were applied to a glass by immersing samples with previously applied multilayers films with polyelectrolytes. A chosen temperature was used both for reduction and fixation of the nanoparticles into the glass. Attention was focused on the influence of used temperature during thermal treatment for color fixation. Furthermore, several experiments took place in order to clarify the efficiency of applying texture to the sample with the purpose of color fixation. The effect of variables such as the number of polyelectrolytes multilayers and metal solution concentration on the resulting color was also studied. As a potential reducing agent of metals such as gold, the tin element can have influenced on the nanoparticles formation process. An experiment was performed in two samples of soda-lime glass on the surface of which tin was implanted. The influence of tin implantation on the final color of the sample was determined. The samples were characterized using UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy. The intention was to produce colored glass samples and apply it to the artwork using the “Occhi” technique. After the experiments the direction for the artwork has been changed and the new results achieved.