Perfecting the Plasma Panel

Glowing plasma inside! Plus works in progress and new experiments in the studio/laboratory 👩🏻‍🔬

The last few months I’ve been refining my plasma panel techniques. There are growing piles of plasma panels on nearly every surface of my home that’s out of reach (for now) from my adventurous toddler.

My art and my 2 year old’s art on my adjustable (but now always standing) desk

This time last year, I had no idea plasma plates existed or was something I could possibly make. How did I get here?

Long story short, I came across a plasma panel workshop offered by Pittsburgh Glass Center on the topic. Then I remembered when I had met with plasma artist Wayne Strattman, he had mentioned that he used to make these but had sold the equipment he used to make them because it was too much of a hassle and he preferred making the giant tubes and orbs (which I agree, are really, really cool).

Not sure why my brain works this way sometimes, but something about “difficult, annoying process” and “I didn’t want to do this anymore” made me want to dive in and try it for myself. But I’m glad I made the trip because panels have been the main thing I’ve been working on (and enjoying!) the last few months.

What I’ve finished so far

Anime Panel

As I’ve been getting a feel of the medium, I’ve been excited about the potential to do more illustrative work combining different types of materials and techniques with plasma. Working with borosilicate beads (as with this anime test piece) reminds me of more comic book/manga style artwork.

“It’s Right There”

Screenprinting and drawing on fused glass also opens up a lot of fun ideas, like these pieces (I made two versions) where I screenprinted an antique medical illustration of a vulva onto glass, kilncarved a clitoris on top of it, and ran krypton through one version piece and neon in the other piece.

Zion National Park

I’ve also been working on more classic glass fusing techniques where you cut and construct pieces of glass together. I made this abstract piece depicting Zion National Park for a glass show last year, and it was a bit of a saga. It was one of the first pieces I made after the workshop and was still getting a handle on the different techniques. n3rdglass helped me process and fill the piece (it was one of the three I was working on that held a vacuum and worked!), though when I brought it to the show to setup hours before the show opening, the tip of the electrode broke, sending all the neon gas out into the ether and leaving me with a blank piece. I was very sad.

On the flip side, the show curators were very understanding and said if I could repair the piece before the end of the show I could resubmit and display it. That got me motivated to finish my own manifold in less than a month so I could repair and refill the piece.

Rainbow Plasma

And, of course, I can’t forget go without mentioning my “Rainbow Plasma” aka experiments with phosphor. I made this piece on a whim, didn’t expect much from it because it was a simple square, but it’s probably one of my more satisfying pieces so far. I was surprised that the phosphor color still reacted from the neon gas (it was muted compared to argon or krypton, but you can still see some of it) and was the first time I cycled through trying most of the different gases (except the ever expensive xenon, I’m not totally insane yet) and see how they each behaved.

And now here I am with a pile of plasma panels on my desk.

New experiments

Now that I’ve done a couple of panels from start to finish, I’m doing a few things to improve my process:

1. Reducing kiln cycles

Each firing in the kiln takes about a day, and while a piece is in the kiln there’s only so much I could do with other pieces in the meantime. There are some steps I think I might be able to combine (like putting the glass sheets and the electrode in one cycle, or fixing the electrode) that would reduce the time to make a panel. It’d also mitigate some risk of panels breaking since each firing could increase the risk of a panel breaking (some panels are more prone to breaking depending on the thickness, colors used, etc).

2. Making panels flatter

Currently, most of my panels have an electrode sticking out in the back. While it works, it increases the depth of the piece, and the electrode sticking out puts it at a higher risk of breaking off (as with my Zion National Park piece). I’m trying to figure out if I can improve that design, either by powering the panel another way (using a Tesla coil perhaps), using a smaller electrode, placing it differently, making a stand that can better support and maybe hide the electrode. There are a lot of different variations to try, but basically seeing what works, what works well, and what’s user friendly so that if I hand something off to another person it’s as easy as possible to plug and play.

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3. New designs

I’m working through some ideas that may be more challenging to execute, but highly satisfying if I can do it. One of them is an animated Pokemon card powered by plasma! I’m working through some of the steps and details still, but I’ll be sharing my work in progress here as I attempt to figure things out.

Onward

There are a lot of other little experiments and tweaks I’m doing in the background, too. If there’s anything anyone’s particularly curious about, let me know in the comments!

P.S. If you also like “annoying processes” and want a fun challenge, the same plasma panel workshop I took last summer will be offered at Corning Museum this fall with the same instructors Mark Ditzler and Percy Echols II, who are fantastic.

Thanks for reading!

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