August, 2011 | Washington Glass Studio

>There is no denying that getting your creative work noticed online is HARD. Art galleries as they now exist, are the old fashioned way of selling art. The competition is vast and ever growing. Every day more and more artists add their artwork to the enormous selection of artwork already available online. How can one even begin to make a dent in that mountain of content and be noticed? Every artist needs their own website, and every artist needs to get their own website now. Every artist needs to become conscious of the new way people are viewing and experiencing art. There are literally billions of people out there who don’t know that you or your art exists. They associate your subject or medium with artists who show up on search engines. They don’t care about what gallery you may be associated with, they care about who shows up on the Web. If you don’t start showing up on the Web very soon, not only will no one know who you are, they won’t even care.

Susan Lomuto – the writer of Daily Art Muse – research diva, an ex-non-profit executive director, a lover of contemporary fine craft has been working with artists and their careers for some time now. Susan had worked an internship here in the DC area’s Gateway Arts District this year to focus on defining how artists work and interact with each other and the community. Susan had just put out a new book and course that deals with artists and defining themselves online.

In Artist Online – a 12-week program, Susan walks you through the confusing maze of choices, answer your questions and teach you the basics using a combination of conference calls, screencast tutorials, handouts, forum posts, email and live online instruction.
Click HERE to read more about the course.

Susan’s also has a new book – The Cool, Calm & Collected Guide To A Better Artist Website: Tools and tips to help you create a website without raising your blood pressure or breaking the bank

Inside the book you will find:

Susan’s number one tip to make your website rock.
8 steps to help you activate the tip.
More than 30 resources to help you create and maintain a professional website for your art and increase the efficiency of your business workflow.
Filled with beautiful images and quotes to inspire you on the journey, this guide will help you create a website while staying cool, calm and collected.

Click HERE to jump to info on the book.

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We have often been told that old European cathedrals glazing show glass is still moving in a semi-solid state as the stained glass panels thicker at the bottom – right? Yes and no – but not for the change in the thickness of the glass.

Way back in 2008, this NY Times Science article delved into the nature of glass –

“…The (cathedral stained glass) tale contains a grain of truth about glass resembling a liquid, however. The arrangement of atoms and molecules in glass is indistinguishable from that of a liquid. But how can a liquid be as strikingly hard as glass?

“They’re the thickest and gooiest of liquids and the most disordered and structureless of rigid solids,” said Peter Harrowell, a professor of chemistry at the University of Sydney in Australia, speaking of glasses, which can be formed from different raw materials. “They sit right at this really profound sort of puzzle.”

“…scientists still disagree, with some vehemence, about the nature of glass.”

“Scientists are slowly accumulating more clues. A few years ago, experiments and computer simulations revealed something unexpected: as molten glass cools, the molecules do not slow down uniformly. Some areas jam rigid first while in other regions the molecules continue to skitter around in a liquid-like fashion. More strangely, the fast-moving regions look no different from the slow-moving ones.

Meanwhile, computer simulations have become sophisticated and large enough to provide additional insights, and yet more theories have been proffered to explain glasses.”

“The glass transition does not occur at a single, well-defined temperature; the slower the cooling, the lower the transition temperature. Even the definition of glass is arbitrary — basically a rate of flow so slow that it is too boring and time-consuming to watch. The final structure of the glass also depends on how slowly it has been cooled.”

The (very tech) article includes discussions what would happen with “cooling at an infinitely slow rate” – so not going to happen in this busy studio.

Click HERE to jump to the 2008 Kenneth Chang article in the NY Times.

Previous Glass Fun Facts postings:
Glass Fun Facts: Gaffer/Composer

More Glass Fun Facts: Bullseye Glass

Float Glass Fun Facts

Glass Fun Facts – Shattered Glass Predicts Weather

Why is Glass Transparent?

The Washington Glass School

Monthly Archives: August 2011

Artists & Websites

Still More Glass Fun Facts: Is Glass Solid or Liquid?