Last Studio Photographs of the Cakes with their Plates/Puddles

Thank you Serena, Brent, Mike and Ben for all your help!

It Worked! It Worked! The Cake Plates are Done!

There is even one extra one! This isn't the world's best photo but when they are so weighty and you only have a cell phone, you'll take what you can get. These have a green tint compared to the others and it is due to how much the glass was recycled in the kiln. I happen to love that they aren't perfectly clear.

• Next up... back to the lighting studio with these heavy plates to rephotograph all the cakes with Serena (I might have to change my desktop image - ahem).

• Find out whatever has happened to my matboard back-order to get the frames in the right corner of this photograph FINISHED (Heather I know you are waiting!).

• Yes or no on the cards that will go next to the cake platters? Still figuring out that final part of the presentation.

• Speaking of installation, I don't know what kind of table will be strong enough to hold these. I swear the glass plates each weigh 25 + pounds.

• Yes, I finally sent all the applications mainly to locations in California so waiting for rejections letters will also be inevitable.

Cake Puddle/Plate: Is the Fifth Time the Charm?

Here's to hoping... (the previous four either blew up in the kiln or warped beyond usability).

If all goes well in the kiln, the last of the glass plates were made today

Remember the shield? It was scorched today to push out the glass and make an indentation so it looked like the 5-tier was sinking slightly (and to make it larger).


Ben and Brent had to put up with a lot of flames during this process.


So much so that Ben was also scorched (though not too badly).


The result of the indentation (can you say "50 pound weight?").


The result of the flames (Ben's burned facial hair).


The table was so hot, it had to be cooled down before the final cake plate for Little Great Lakes was poured.


I made Li and Jon's recipe for "Decadent Chocolate Cake" yesterday to celebrate. Here's what it looked like freshly frosted.



Here's what it looked like (posing on a cake plate on top of a fake cake plate) after sitting in my car for a few hours in 15 degree weather.



It was Hannah and Mike's belated birthday cake (ahem two months late) but still was edible nonetheless. Brent also shaved down some of the sharp glass pieces on four of the plates and they are sitting underneath their respective cakes in the studio. I'll post a photograph when today's three are done.

A couple finished cake plates (and cats)

It's dark upstairs in the studio hence the low quality photos. Out of the ten plates/puddles (one for the slice itself), seven are made (one broke in the kiln last round), three are in the house and the other four need to be ground down because I'll slice my fingers if I touch them the wrong way. Here are the finished ones for Lime Green and the Slice (and Button Omelet and Oatmeal - the closest they get before a fight breaks out). The Lime Green plate was so heavy, my arm was shaking while taking the photograph.

Glass Puddles AKA Cake Plates

We are almost done with the glass cake plates. Since the last visit to the glass studio, I decided to go with the clear molten pours because they replicate water best. They have many imperfections (size, amount of bubbles, etc.) just like the cakes. Seven of the nine are complete. I will go back later this week to make the final one with the "shield" constructed yesterday. Brent requested photographs to be taken of this event for the glass website and Elise kindly was up for the task. All these images were taken by Elise Rorick. THANK YOU!


Brent and JR figuring out the diameters of the plates before the pouring begins.


Organization (no surprise there) and ordering from largest to smallest.


... and so we begin.


Pressing out the bubbles and pushing the glass outward to make a larger plate.


It starts to smell like S'mores right about now.


Using the torch to get the edges right.


Hannah was recruited to push the plates onto the plywood.


I became an expert kiln door opener.


We weren't getting large enough diameters of plates so Ben, the grad student, stepped in to help pour as well. This photo shows the order of operation: Brent poured first with JR manning the kiln door followed by Ben with Hannah at the kiln door.



Ben's pour for the largest plate 18 inches in diameter (and I can't imagine how heavy it's going to be).


This one had the largest bubble which popped in an irregular shape. It might fit the "Slice" well but I'll find out later this week.


Of all the images Elise took, I love this one most. It captures the difficulty of this task. When I visited Niagara Falls this summer, many people talked about the lure of the river and their desire to jump. I did not have this experience AT ALL but I will say that a desire quite similar to that was recognized today. I just want to touch that glass. Of course I wouldn't but the temptation was great.


Smile and Wave (spoofing the genre of images to be found on the school's website).

The Cake Plates (some of them)

Top shelf: Angel Food cake plate which was supposed to be a chocolate and tobacco combination but turned out gray.

Middle Shelf: the shattered neutral gray Niagara Falls plate.

Bottom shelf: the Barton Springs plate (oh la la!)



The molten pour tests for the slice. One side is textured from the surface of the table and the top is smooth. They even have ripples like water.

Cake Plates: First Round in the New Glass Building

I spent the afternoon in the glass shop where it smelled like beeswax and a campfire (nice). Mike Hernandez and Brent Cole made the first few plates for the cakes. We began with a dark green for Barton Springs, we moved on to a chocolate brown for the angel food cake, a neutral gray for Niagara Falls (unfortunately that one shattered), and two clear pours with ripples for Little Great Lakes, and the Slice. The first plates for these cakes:



Adding the color (forgive my lack of terminology):



Oh yes... the glory hole:



I was enamored by the tools namely the stack of sometimes smoldering newspaper used like an oven mitt:



... finally the molten pour for the "slice":