• Pin It

I is for iridized glass, and its shimmering rainbow effect.  A thin metallic layer is bonded to the glass when a metallic salt solution is applied and then heated.  Dichroic glass, which means “two color” is sometimes confused with iridized glass, but it is a coating that allows the glass to toggle back and forth between only 2 colors. The pale yellow glass, second row from the outer edge in this mandala, is iridized, and you can see the subtle purplish sheen of the rainbow coloration.  Tiffany patented a version of iridescent glass called “Favrile” which was applied to his blown glass artworks. Here is an excerpt from Mark Doty’s apt poem, titled Favrile:

Glassmakers,

at century’s end,

compounded metallic lusters

 

in reference

to natural sheens (dragonfly

and beetle wings,

 

marbled light on kerosene)

and invented names

as coolly lustrous

 

as their products’

scarab-gleam: Quetzal,

Aurene, Favrile.

 

Suggesting,

respectively, the glaze

of feathers,

 

that sun-shot fog

of which halos

are composed. . .