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| Coastsider fuses new life in old space By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 3:54 PM PST Years ago, three rooms in Aileen Cain’s downstairs were her kids’ exclusive domain. Now, daughter Alex and son Bryan are grown and on their own and the space belongs to mom. When they come back home, they take over the rooms again. Alex does woodwork, like her mother, and Bryan pursues photography. “When they come down here, it’s a playroom again,” laughed Cain. “But now it’s my turn.” That means the three rooms are now a studio where Cain creates abstract and colorful works of fused glass. This weekend she will turn her home into a showroom for fused glass bowls, vessels, coasters or jewelry. Their vibrant colors and abstract shapes are typical of fused glass but their well-ordered symmetry reflects Cain’s artistic ethos. “I’m not glass-driven, I’m design-driven,” she says, critically eyeing the jumble of small glass “elements” fused into an artistic cacophony that is aesthetically pleasing. While other glass artists might use premade forms or dichroic, iridized or cathedral glass, Cain uses simple Spectrum 96 glass, relying on her sense of color and design from a background in painting for the showiness. “I like making things,” she said simply. “It gives me satisfaction to create things.” In the first of the three rooms, she enjoys woodworking, painting the abstract shapes turned by husband David Olney and making little container boxes with whimsical tops. The next room is filled with racks of flat glass sheets, jars and boxes of little elements, and tools. In the final room, Cain keeps her kiln, and does the “dirty work” or “cold work” of grinding and sawing. To make fused glass, Cain arranges the elements into a pattern on a base sheet of glass. That goes into the kiln, where the temperature is raised — slowly, to avoid temperature shock — to the 1,460 degrees needed for firing. That continues for 24 hours, and then the kiln is just as slowly cooled. In the process, the elements merge or “fuse” into the base, to form a solid piece of glass. Cain might repeat the firing process up to five times as she adds elements. When all is cool, she selects a mold, over which the base of glass is placed so that it can “slump” into the desired shape. The result is a vessel or bowl of fused glass, with a cacophony of shapes visually jostling in the solid-color base. At other times, Cain might fire glass shapes and leave them flat, and cut or arrange them into stars or small parts of earrings. This isn’t glass-blowing, she said. Round things like glass balls are blown, but her medium is flat. The step from watercolor painting to fused glass was almost an unexpected one for Cain. She had earned a degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and taken numerous are classes at Bay Area community colleges when, five years ago, a neighbor got a kiln and introduced her to the art. “I was instantly addicted,” she said. Once she started creating fused glass, she moved to a higher level. She now sells her work at area professional art fairs including in Los Altos and Menlo Park, the Kings Mountain Art Fair and the Pumpkin Festival. Her background in watercolor is a boon, she said. “It’s a big boost to have dealt with issues of transparent and opaque, which is what watercolor is all about,” she said. She does not worry about her creations shattering if her fingers slip. “I can make more,” she said. “I hate to see that happen, but it’s not the driving force in what I do. “And, bottom line, “It’s a fun medium,” she said. “I have good times.” Her home is located at 730 Kelmore Ave., and the sale is scheduled for 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14. For information, call 728-9591. |