The damn light bulb....

Creating a cohesive whole with the numerous and varied items has been quite a challenge.  But I now have a working idea, one that manages to incorporate most of the items, and I figure I will find a way to include the rest as I begin to build this chandelier.

Tentative plan

The elements so far include the mossy material as petal leaves forming the shade of the light, with the plastic bits from the necklace stitched on sort of like seed pods.  Everything else will dangle below like stamen and pistils.

This idea began with the concept of melting and stretching the old light bulb, much like they used to do to old soda bottles at carnivals.  Seems like an easy enough thing, no?  I was very excited to try this, rushed off to the hardware store last week to get a blow torch and began to practice.  Donning protective goggles and leather gloves, I decided to practice on a dead light bulb that I had laying around.  Man, it takes a lot of heat to melt on of those things!  It didn't stretch as I was imagining, however, it just sort of bulged out sideways until it popped.  Not to be deterred, I decided that modern bulbs are probably more heat resistant than this old one that was given to me.  The bulb didn't have a metal socket to hold it by, so I had to try and grip it by it's glass stem that holds the filament.  Unfortunately, as soon as I tried this, my pliers shattered the stem and the top of the glass bulb! 

Faced with the sharp edges of the broken bulb, I took a break and wandered over to the local hardware store looking for inspiration.  Hardware stores are my happy place.  While there I decided to try soldering the edges.  Purchasing the necessary tools, I rushed home with my new inspiration.  Sometimes catastrophe can work out for the best, I thought!  After a few quick tutorials on Youtube, I was ready to begin.  I lined the edges of the glass with foil tape, which is not as easy as it would seem.  The tape doesn't really wanna stick to the glass at all those odd angles, and kept trying to pop off.  Finally, however, I managed to get it on, flux it up and solder it in place.  I also added a ring at the top so that I could hang it from the chandelier.  It now looked like a hanging vase.  I was super excited that it worked out, and rushed up stairs to rinse it off.  Flux, the compound that enables solder to grip other metals such as copper, is pretty greasy stuff.  After very gently washing it off, and then incredibly gently drying it, I took it back down into my studio to start working on my other items.  Setting it on my work table, the bottom immediately broke.  Ok, I thought, this is fine, I can still make this work.  All my soldering stuff was still out, so I carefully lined the three holes that had popped out the bottom and soldered them.  I also soldered the cracks that had formed in an effort to strengthen the bulb.  Feeling that I should use as much of the bulb as possible, I also soldered the pieces that had broken off, thinking maybe I could dangle them under the chandelier as well.  At this point, I had an epiphany.  Solder is designed to bind two metals together, what if I used it to reattach the glass bits back to the bulb?  It worked, it was super easy and it looks cool!  This is when I had my second epiphany.  What if I soldered a hoop on the crystal, and then dangled it inside this new glass sculpture I had made?  This also worked and looked amazing, like something Barbarella would hang from her rear view mirror!  Totally excited, I ran upstairs to show my partner how cool this was, and immediately broke the bulb again.  Apparently, swinging a crystal around inside a fragile glass bulb isn't the best idea.   This time, luckily, it was only cracks.  I took the crystal out, soldered the cracks and tucked the bulb away in a safe spot, not to come out until it was time to hang it on the chandelier.  Unfortunately, I forgot that and pulled it out last night to photograph it for this blog.  I'm sure you can guess what happened next.....  At this rate, the bulb is going to be all solder by the time the chandelier is finished!

The light bulb

The latest crack, bottom left

For now though, I'm done with this bulb.  I want to focus on other things, such as the frame for this chandelier.  I'll get back to the bulb later.