Pâte de Verre
We had the pleasure of working with Pâte de Verre, one of the earliest glass-making techniques in the world. It was also one of the messiest (and most fun) techniques we ever tried.
The Corning Museum of Glass writes...
"The term (Pâte de Verre) means "glass paste" in French and refers to a casting technique for making objects by grinding glass into a fine powder, adding a binder to create a paste, and adding a fluxing medium to facilitate melting. The paste is brushed or tamped into a mold, dried, and fused by firing.
After annealing, the object is removed from the mold and finished by cold working processes. While glass pastes have been used since ancient Egyptian times by glassmakers, pâte de verre, as it is known in modern times, came out of late 19th century France. Artists such as Henry Cros, Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, and François Décorchemont brought the use of glass paste back into vogue and it is still highly popular today."
