About the Artist
Sherry Sabbatini designs fused glass jewelry, art, and dishes in her West Danby, NY home studio. Always creative, Sherry was drawn to colored glass from an early age. Starting in the 1980s making stained glass suncatchers and lamps as a hobby, she expanded into fused glass after retirement from the hardwood lumber industry in 2016. Constantly learning new techniques and processes keeps Sherry excited about her art, opening each kiln is like Christmas morning!
Family, three miniature schnauzers (Timber, Maple, and Ash), and creating with glass is Sherry’s ideal retirement!
How It’s Made
Fusing starts with flat glass sheets two and three mm thick. The pieces of the design are cut using a carbide wheel cutter or a diamond wet saw. If needed the edges are ground smooth with a diamond wet grinder. Electric kilns fuse the glass at temperatures between 1200F to 1500F. Temperature schedules control both the heating and cooling (called annealing) of the kiln. A kiln schedule can take eighteen to more than 36 hours to complete depending on the thickness and size of the items. Fusing can be just a tack fuse sticking the pieces together with slightly rounded edges and full texture, a contour fuse where edges are more rounded but retain some texture, to a full fuse where the pieces become one with a smooth surface. Using opalescent and transparent glass and dichroic glass in her creations, Sherry will sometimes use multiple fusing cycles to add detailed components and form (slump) the piece into a mold for the final shape.
Glass Terms
Opal or opalescent glass: Light-reflecting glass that cannot be seen through.
Transparent glass: Transmits light and can be seen through.
Dichro or Dichroic glass: Either opal or transparent glass coated with vaporized quartz crystal and metal oxides which form a crystal structure on the base glass. As many as 30 layers are used to create the different colors. The coatings give both a transmitted color as seen when looking through the glass and a reflected color when light bounces off the surface.
Irid or iridescent glass: Glass with a metallic coating that reflects rainbow, silver, or gold colors.
Streaky glass: Hand-rolled sheets combining two opal colors or opal and transparent glasses mixed for a streaky appearance.
Glass Frit: Crushed glass sifted by size into coarse, medium, fine, or powder grits. Frit can be opal, transparent, dichroic, or irid
Glass Stringers: Threads of glass, either opal or transparent pulled from re-melted glass.
Etched Dichroic: Using acid or a diamond burr to remove the metal coating to form an image or pattern. The base glass color shows where the coating is removed.
Pattern Bars: Glass of varying types and colors are stacked in a mold then heated to create a single block. This block is then sawn across the grain of the piece into thin slices of a similar pattern. A kaleidoscope effect can be created by using the repeat pattern pieces in jewelry and art.
Layered Puddles: Layers of alternating color are stacked then fused in a kiln. The fused block of glass is shattered into chunks. The glass chunks are turned 90 degrees in the kiln and re-fused. The resulting puddle will show a flowing, layered pattern.
Reaction Color: Some glass uses copper, lead, or sulfur/selenium in its composition. A color reaction can occur when different types are fused together. Example turquoise contains copper and french vanilla contains sulfur/selenium. A permanent grey to black color can result where they touch.