Glass
Glass is a very utilitarian material, used for everything from windows and mirrors, to bottles and bakeware, to insulation and roofing shingles (in the form of fiberglass), and even to fiber optic cables. While glass is often designed to be unobtrusive, as we want to see through it, with the addition of certain coloring agents the glass itself can become an object of beauty. Check out the links below for some ideas about how to create works of art from glass.
Links
Corning Museum of Glass. This site is loaded with great resources:
http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=264#contents
Museum of Glass in Tacoma, Washington; science and glass page:
http://www.museumofglass.org/education/science-of-art/
Pilkington Glass. This corporate site has limited, but useful, glass chemistry information.
http://www.pilkington.com/pilkington-information/about+
pilkington/education/chemistry+of+glass.htm
An introduction to lampworking (beadmaking) by Ann Scherm Baldwin:
http://www.schermobeads.com/beadmaking/beadmaking.html
Gorgeous beads made by Sarah Hornik:
http://www.glassbysarah.com
Making simple (and fragile) glass beads in the chemistry lab:
making_glass_beads.pdf
glass_artist_pupilsheet.pdf