Joyce Janiszewski
Philadelphia, PA

Mission 1:

Title: "Eye of the Hour"

My submission for round 1 of Battlefield Glass is an Hour Glass with usage of Egyptian influence. The hour Glass stands 8.5"tall by 3.5" wide. The glass used is all Spectrum Glass and varies from reds, ambers, clear rolled, aqua, green and various jewel colors.

The overall shape of the structure is that of Egyptian Pyramids. The lead camel is incased in the bottom pyramid, which gives the illusion of a camel standing in the hot desert sun. 2 of the traingle panels that make up this bottom half are of sand dunes while the other 2 are of jeweled scarobs. In researching these insects I discovered that there are close to 80,000 varios colored jeweled scarobs in Egypt(cool huh).

The top pyramid depicts 4 jeweled scarobs ranging in hues from green, red, amber and blue. In the these scarobs I incorporated the top portion of the angel wings as the wings of the scarob. A jewel is also embedded in the center of each insect.

The bottom portion of the angel wings as well as the orange jewel are incorporated into the top panel of the pyramid in the design of the eye. The jewel is the pupil and the wing section becomes extended lucious lashes. There is also a second eye design on the bottom of the other pyramid. The lead is then finished in a black patina.

In the construction of this piece I ran into several problems. The first was figuring out how to compensate the weight of the pyramids on top of one another. I solved that problem by using brass corner channel as supports on each side, which also doubles as a way to flip the hour glass.

My second problem was determining how large of a hole that was needed to ensure the sand would flow through. That was basically sloved by trial and error. I actually had to rebuild my first 2 initail panels after discovering that the hole would be too small.

My third problem was figuring out a small enough grain of sand and making sure that the hole would not be closed during the soldering process. For me that was a difficult venture being that I've never worked with that type of material before. This too was basically trial and error. I also made sure that not too much solder was used and that the temp. remained slightly lower to keep the hole from closing.

Overall I had an excellent time creating this hour glass. This is my first time participating in Battlefield Glass and I feel that it was a great experience in this first mission. I really opened my mind and tried to think of a conceptual yet functioning approach to the materials that were given.

My other thought was how great it was to encase sand in glass when glass is derived from it.

Much fun was had and alot was learned.