Art Talk with Jeff Wolf: Kiln Surprise Bowl

If you’ve followed us for a while, you know we used to give Art Talk presentations monthly. Because we are getting busier with many other projects, we decided to do it less frequently and host these events once every quarter.

So, after a hiatus of a few months, Jeff Wolf who is the co-owner and artist of MoltenWolf Glass, took the stage to give an interesting presentation about his latest experiment. We had a nice turnaround of visitors – each chair was occupied and some even had to stand. Thanks to everyone who came, your interest means a lot to us!

Experimenting with a bowl

Jeff wanted to create a bowl for this experimental art piece. His style of designing is abstract and linear – he enjoys grids and patterns. For this project though, he decided to do things a little differently. What happens if you use curved lines instead of straight lines? He also wanted to give this design a frosty look – to counter the hot temperatures we have in Bonaire these months.

It’s all about the process

After the experimenting phase where Jeff established the desired outcome of the glass, he started cutting all the elements needed such as spokes, dots and a clear glass circle. The spokes had to be adjusted so that they didn’t stack too high. And it turned out 8 spokes were needed instead of 16.

Firing and Surprises

Once the design was finished, the bowl went into the kiln twice for firing. There, Jeff encountered some surprises – one of which was the air bubbles inside the bowl! First, he thought the piece was ruined because often the glass gets very thin and breaks easily when bubbles occur. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case with this bowl. To Jeff’s relief, the bowl is very sturdy and in our opinion looks pretty cool!

If you would like to read more technical details about the whole design process, click here to read the full presentation. We keep all presentations online after each Art Talk, so you can even read back on past presentations.