Carol Ventura's Fused Glass
These fused glass self portraits evolved from my 1988 Facing Life: Computer Assisted, Photo-etched, and Viscosity Printed
Master of Fine Art Thesis. In those early days of Apple computers, I had to stay still for 15 seconds while a
camera connected to a Mackintosh SE digitized my face. The wonderful texture in the shadows is quite different from today's digital photographs.
I contact printed the laser prints against high contrast film in a darkroom to make the large transparent positives
needed to expose the light sensitive zinc plates that were used to produce the colorful intaglio prints for my thesis.
Fast forward to 2025, I used the same film positives to expose photosensitive screens. The portraits were then screen-printed with dry fine glass powder onto colored glass (A)
and tack fired in a kiln to fuse the powder to the opaque glass (B and C). The edges of the glass were ground smooth to assure a close fit (D and E), topped with clear glass (F), then fuse fired again. Lastly, the fused piece was laid
onto a mold (G) and slump fired (H) to give it a three-dimensional shape.
My work is available at the Silver Fern Gallery in Cookeville, TN, and the Appalachian Center for Craft Gallery in Smithville, TN.
