Picture 003

These are two green beads that didn't survive the amount of CZ I used. In this case I melted the end of a grass-green rod, made a maria, and used that to pick up lots of CZ off the marver. I kneaded this in, then picked up more -- until I had a gather on the end of the rod that was all mixed with CZ, like a slurry. Out of this "aggregate" I made these two beads.

They looked just great on the mandrel and I was excited about them, especially the big teardrop. But when they came out of the kiln next morning they both had compound fractures. You can see these vividly in the teardrop. I am tempted to use it anyway, as a pendant -- despite the cracks it seems to be quite strong -- but I suspect one day, given a slight shock or exposre to extreme cold, it will fly apart.

There are several other pics of these two in different lights, so that people with different video monitors can find the one that looks clearest on their screen.