Kim Webster, The Glass Gardener
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Corn Chronicle Continues...

10/2/2017

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In the meantime, after many days of investigation at metal suppliers’ and plumbing stores, Barry (Kernel Stone) gets to work on a test leaf using roofing copper from Alco hammered around a wooden log. He also makes a horizontal plate to hold the kernels inside the leaves so we can “cheat’ on the number of glass kernels required and give the illusion of a full cob of corn. We decide (much to my environmental chagrin) that rounds of inch thick styrofoam insulation boards can work to help build up from a few single exposed kernels to the point where a full ring of kernels would first be visible.  The styrofoam won’t add weight. 
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i​Sept 29, 2017: How many leaves and how tall? I have my imaginings of corn as high as an elephant's eye, but today we look at photos of corn cobs and take serious measurements. Most real corn cobs have a ratio of 4" high to 1" diameter. My 8-kernel rings are just over 12” in diameter, so that calculates to a 4’ high cob… not tall enough in my mind's eye, but when we add leaves to the base and a happy set of el-wire corn silk to the top, I think we can get close to 6 feet tall. Happy me. And the copper sheet has arrived, thanks to Barry and our stalwart house guest Robert Gardiner who took the trip to Sequoia Copper and Brass in Hayward yesterday.
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Sept 30, 2017: We set up and secure the first “fake” rounds of corn on the internal structure. We go to the garden (at Lake Merritt) to measure for the grapes I want to hang from the Brugmansia and I imagine the cob of corn in situ I’ve now attached all the full rounds of corn with Magic Sculpt and Barry has competed the wiring. My studio is in chaos! Sixteen days to go til set up. I sure hope this works!
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​October 1 2017: Kim gets word that the pot of glass at the studio will be charged with white glass tomorrow instead of clear. Kim races to the studio to blow a few more small kernels for the top layer and will return tomorrow to blow the very top piece before the glass gets changed. 
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We work in the studio in the evening and decide on the actual stacking order of the glass. Kim will need to mold more Magic Sculpt into the interstitial areas to block the light and give the “cob” behind the glass kernels a continuous look. ​
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Corn Chronicle - Notes on the Making of a Giant Lit Glass Cob!

10/1/2017

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I’ve had four boxes of blown glass corn kernels in deep storage for over 15 years. On August 29, 2017 less than 2 months to go before the Autumn Lights Festival at the Gardens of Lake Merritt (and our 25th wedding anniversary), I decide it’s time to bring this corn cob idea out in the open. I ask my husband Barry for help because I have only the slightest idea of how to proceed and to go-it-alone would be impossible given the time-frame. Barry, always up for a challenge, agrees to partner-up!

Originally, I wanted just to make an oversized corn cob. I drew my idea onto a pane of glass for my studio window which Barry built for me in 2001. I couldn’t figure out an internal structure to hold the glass, so I left it alone. And now I wanted to add another layer of complexity… the lights!

But structure comes first, so Barry and I began experiments... would wire mesh soldered around the kernels work? No. Copper foil? Nope. How can we stack the kernels and still leave openings for the lights???

Last year, for a glass Pride of Madeira, I discovered a product called Magic Sculpt at Douglas and Sturgess – it is a two-part resin that can be worked by hand, cures in 4-6 hours and can be drilled, sawn and better yet, added-to after it cures. I surround some cracked kernels and an odd-shaped one in Magic Sculpt to see if it will stick to the glass but won’t shrink to cause breakage. The test goes extremely well…
 





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I knew about Cool Neon’s 5v strings of lights that could fit into the backs of the kernels, so we make a trip to see Gio and Benjamin to purchase about 100 lights, a bunch of connectors and shrink tubing.

Sept 7, 2017: I go to work on the 100-plus glass parts with the diamond saw, cutting back the “necks” until the openings were big enough for the lights to fit. Then I beveled the edges on my lathe and cleaned-out the residue so the lights won't reveal glass “saw dust” stuck inside the kernels. 

After scratching our heads and many kitchen table drawings, we decide on a few things:
  1. The piece needs to come apart for ease of storage and transport;
  2. We need room to get the wiring into the glass. Layers of glass kernel stacked together might work;
  3. We need a structure to hold the glass and the external leaves which we’ll make out of copper. and
  4. We’ll try and have fun and not stress (note to self!)
​Next, despite my nervousness about the possibility of wasting precious (if old) finished glass pieces, I attach 7 kernels together in a ring. The result is good: sturdy and solid enough to proceed. But alas, 7 kernels around isn’t visually good enough. You can see only one kernel head-on and the rest obliquely.

Sept 23, 2017: a watershed moment -  Barry uses a special Bosch vibrating saw to cut the 7 kernels apart and we decide to go with rings of 8.  Barry begins soldering the wires so we can wire up each layer separately.


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    Kim Webster

    Kim is a glassblower, gardener and choral singer. She is a Canadian transplant, living happily in Oakland, CA with her husband Barry Stone.

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