Incisions

I've been devoting more time to mosaic-making. In particular I am attempting to master the art of cutting sheets of stained glass into the sizes and shapes that I want. If you've ever been in a glass shop, you might have seen an employee coat the glass with kerosene or paint thinner and score the glass (or mirror) with a special tool. The lubricant prevents the glass from "healing" after it has been scored, thereby allowing a very clean break.

Voila!

It looks so easy. And I'm sure it will be easy for me, too, after I've made dozens of tries, hopefully not all as bloody as they were today. I have two scoring tools - a wet one (requiring a lubricant) and a dry one. A mosaicist friend makes clean and efficient cuts with her dry scorer and watching her a few times it looked rather straightforward.

But the project I am working on now - a mirror - involves several different colors of stained glass, each with a different surface texture. And some sheets of glass have different textures on the front and back. Each type of glass requires a different amount of pressure to score it so that it will break cleanly, not shatter into pieces when I place it in the glass nipper and gently squeeze perpendicular to the scored line. And the glass somehow knows when I mean to score it or not ... it senses the purity of my intention, my ability to focus on it and only it. When I do give the glass 100% of my attention and my score is straight and on the correct side of the glass, it breaks easily.

But I must have been distracted this afternoon because many of my attempts yielded imprecise cuts, which sliced incisions into my finger tips as I tried to position the glass pieces on my mosaic. Three blood soaked bandaids later it was time to stop and go to yoga. Tomorrow I will try again.