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{{Short description|Glassblowing technique for making glass rods with several colored patterns}}
[[Image:zanfirico1.jpg|thumb|Hand-pulled and twisted complex glass canes]]▼
Cane refers to rods of glass with color; these rods can be simple, containing a single color, or they can be complex and contain many strands of multiple colors in pattern. ▼
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'''Caneworking''' refers to the process of making cane, and also to the use of pieces of cane, lengthwise, in the blowing process to add intricate, often spiral, patterns and stripes to vessels or other blown glass objects. Cane is also used to make [[murrine]] (singular ''murrina'', sometimes called mosaic glass), thin discs cut from the cane in cross-section that are also added to blown or hot-worked objects. A particular form of murrine glasswork is [[millefiori]] ("thousand flowers"), in which many murrine with a flower-like or star-shaped cross-section are included in a blown glass piece.
Caneworking is an ancient technique, first invented in southern [[Italy]] in the second half of the third century BC, and elaborately developed centuries later on the Italian island of [[Murano]].<ref name=TaitChap1>{{cite book|last1=Tatton-Brown |first1=Veronica |last2=Andrews |first2=Carol |chapter=Chapter One: Before the Invention of Glassblowing |editor-last=Tait |editor-first=Hugh |title=Glass: 5,000 Years |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |location=New York |date= 1991 |isbn= 0-8109-3361-6 }}</ref><ref name=TaitChap5>{{cite book|last1=Tait |first1=Hugh | chapter=Chapter Five: Europe from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution |editor-last=Tait |editor-first=Hugh |title=Glass: 5,000 Years }}</ref>
==Variations in Technique==▼
==Making cane==
One way glassblowers incorporate cane into their work is to line up cane on a steel or ceramic plate and heat them slowly to avoid cracking. When the surfaces of the canes just begin to melt, the canes adhere to each other. The tip of a glassblowing pipe ([[blowpipe (tool)|blowpipe]]) is covered with a 'collar' of clear molten glass, and touched to one corner of the aligned canes. The tip of the blowpipe is then made to roll along the bottom of the canes, to which they stick. The canes are now aligned cylindrically around the edge of the blowpipe. They are heated further until soft enough to shape. The cylinder of canes is sealed at the bottom with jacks and [[tweezers]], to form the beginning of a bubble. The bubble is then blown using traditional glassblowing techniques.▼
There are several different methods of making cane. In each, the fundamental technique is the same: a lump of glass, often containing some pattern of colored and clear glass, is heated in a furnace ([[Glassblowing#glory hole|glory hole]]) and then pulled, by means of a long metal rod ([[Glassblowing#punty |punty]]) attached at each end. As the glass is stretched out, it retains whatever cross-sectional pattern was in the original lump, but narrows quite uniformly along its length (due to the skill of the glassblowers doing the pulling, aided by the fact that if the glass becomes narrower at some point along the length, it cools more there and thus becomes stiffer). Cane is usually pulled until it reaches roughly the diameter of a pencil,<ref group=Notes>This diameter is small enough that the finished cane can be broken into short lengths or into murrine without a cutting tool, and it is convenient for picking up on a blowpipe. Contemporary glass artists sometimes use cane of larger diameter to make large murrine, which must be cut from the cane with a diamond saw.</ref> when, depending on the size of the original lump, it may be anywhere from one to fifty feet in length. After cooling, it is broken into sections usually from four to six inches long, which can then be used in making more complex canes or in other glassblowing techniques.
The simplest cane, called ''vetro a fili ''<ref name=WhitehouseDictionary>{{cite book|editor-last=Whitehouse|editor-first=David |title=Glass: A Pocket Dictionary of Terms Commonly Used to Describe Glass and Glassmaking |year=1993 |publisher=Corning Museum of Glass |location= Corning, New York| isbn=0-87290-132-7}}</ref> (glass with threads) is clear glass with one or more threads of colored (often white) glass running its length. It is commonly made by heating and shaping a chunk of clear, white, or colored glass on the end of a punty, and then ''gathering'' molten clear glass over the color by dipping the punty in a furnace containing the clear glass. After the desired amount of clear glass is surrounding the color, this cylinder of hot glass is then shaped, cooled and heated until uniform in shape and temperature. Simultaneously an assistant prepares a 'post' which is another punty with a small platform of clear glass on the end. The post is pressed against the end of the hot cylinder of glass to connect them, and the glassblower (or 'gaffer') and assistant walk away from each other with the punties, until the cane is stretched to the desired length and diameter. The cane cools within minutes and is cut into small sections. <ref>{{cite web|last1=Patchen|first1=David|title=Sequence of cane-making images|url=http://www.davidpatchen.com/studio/making-cane|website=David Patchen Studio|access-date=31 May 2017}}</ref>
Cane can also be incorporated in larger blown glass work by picking it up on a bubble of molten clear glass. This technique involves the glassblower (or 'gaffer') creating a bubble from molten clear glass while an assistant heats the pattern of cane. When the cane design is fused and at the correct temperature and the bubble is exactly the correct size and temperature, the bubble is rolled over the cane pattern, which sticks to the hot glass. The bubble must be the exact size and temperature for the pattern to cover it fully without any gaps or trapping bubbles. This advanced glassblowing technique is common in Italian glass and is employed by a number of other glass artists as well. Photos illustrating this approach to working with cane is shown [http://www.davidpatchen.com/content.php?sec=studio in this series]. <gallery>▼
[[Image:Canework detail - David Patchen 9314.jpg|thumb|Close-up of ballotini cane forming a part of a blown vessel]]
▲Image:zanfirico1.jpg|Hand-pulled and twisted complex glass canes
Image:Zanfirico and ballotini cane from Patchen.jpg|Work made with both zanfirico and ballotini (helix-twist) cane.▼
Image:caneworking1.jpg|Contemporary canework▼
Image:caneworking2.jpg|Traditional canework▼
A simple single-thread cane can then be used to make more complex canes. A small bundle of single-thread canes can be heated until they fuse, or heated canes, laid parallel, can be picked up on the circumference of a hot cylinder of clear or colored glass. This bundle, treated just as the chunk of color in the description above, is cased in clear glass and pulled out, forming a ''vetro a fili '' cane with multiple threads and perhaps a clear or solid color core. If the cane is twisted as it is pulled, the threads take a spiral shape called ''vetro a retorti '' (twisted glass) or [[Glossary of glass art terms#zanfirico |''zanfirico'']]. <ref name=WhitehouseDictionary/> <ref>{{cite web |last1=Patchen |first1=David |title=Sequence of murrine-making images |url=http://www.davidpatchen.com/studio/making-murrine |website=David Patchen Studio |access-date=31 May 2017}}</ref>
''Ballotini'' is a cane technique in which several ''vetro a fili'' canes are picked up while laid side-by-side rather than a bundle, with a clear glass gather over them. This gather is shaped into a cylinder with the canes directed along the axis, so that the canes form a sort of "fence" across the diameter of the cylinder. When this is simultaneously twisted and pulled, the resulting cane has a helix of threads across its thickness.
[[File:MillefioriDisc.jpg|thumb|A small - {{convert|1+1/2|in|abbr=on}} - disc of millefiori-patterned glass. Each of the stars and flowers is a cross-section of a cane]]
Another technique for forming cane is to use optic molds<ref name=WhitehouseDictionary /><ref name=TaitTechniques>{{cite book|last1=Gudenrath |first1=William | chapter=Appendix: Techniques of Glassmaking and Decoration |editor-last=Tait |editor-first=Hugh |title=Glass: 5,000 Years }}</ref>{{rp|228, fig. 110}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Murrine Making|url= http://www.cmog.org/video/murrine-making |publisher=Corning Museum of Glass |access-date=29 May 2017}}</ref> to make more complex cross sections. An optic mold is an open-ended cone-shaped mold with some sort of lobed or star shape around its inside circumference. When a gather or partially blown bubble is forced into the mold, its outside takes the shape of the mold. Canes with complicated, multi-colored patterns are formed by placing layers of different or alternating colors over a solid-color core, using various optic molds on the layers as they are built. Because the outer layers are hotter than those inside when the molds are used, the mold shape is impressed into the outer color without deforming the inner shapes. Canes made in this way are used in making ''millefiori''. Discs from eight different canes have been used to make the pendant in the photo.
Finally, [[Flameworking|flameworkers]] sometimes make cane by building up the cross-section using ordinary flameworking or bead making techniques. This permits very subtle gradations of color and shading, and is the way murrine portraits are usually made.
==Cane use==
The generic term for blown glass made using canes in the lengthwise direction is ''filigrano'' (filigree glass), as contrasted with ''murrine'' when the canes are sliced and used in cross-section. (An older term is ''latticino'', which has fallen into disuse). <ref name=WhitehouseDictionary /><ref name=TaitGlossary>{{cite book| chapter=Appendix: Glossary |editor-last=Tait |editor-first=Hugh |title=Glass: 5,000 Years }}</ref>
▲One way glassblowers incorporate cane into their work is to line up
▲Cane can also be incorporated in larger blown glass work by picking it up on a bubble of molten clear glass.
{{anchor|Reticello}}[[Image:Example of Reticello - David Patchen 3692.jpg|thumb|Close-up of reticello vessel blown by artist [[David Patchen]]]]
The classical ''reticello'' pattern is a small uniform mesh of white threads in clear glass, with a tiny air bubble in every mesh rectangle. To make an object in this pattern, the glassblower first uses white single-thread ''vetro a fili '' canes to blow a cylindrical cup shape, twisting as he forms it so the canes are in a spiral, and using care not to totally smooth the inside ribbing that remains from the canes. Setting this cup aside (usually keeping it warm in a furnace, below its softening point), he then makes another closed cylinder in the same pattern, but twisted in the opposite direction, and retaining some of the ribbing on the cylinder's outside. When this cylinder is the right size, the glassblower plunges it into the warm cup, without touching any of the sides until it is inserted all the way. Air is trapped in the spaces between the ribs of the two pieces, forming the uniformly spaced air bubbles. The piece may then be blown out and shaped as desired.<ref name=TaitTechniques />{{rp|240}} The term ''reticello'' is often loosely applied to any criss-cross pattern, whether ''vetro a fili '' or ''vetro a retorti '', white or colored, and with or without air bubbles.
See [[Murrine]] and [[Millefiori]] for information about these techniques.
==Additional canework images==
<gallery>
▲Image:caneworking2.jpg|Traditional canework
▲Image:caneworking1.jpg|Contemporary canework
Image:Canework in glass sculpture - David Patchen.jpg|''Ballotini'' and ''zanfirico'' canework by [[David Patchen]]
Image:Canework detail - David Patchen 8757.jpg|Close-up of combined ballotini and zanfirico cane
Image:David Patchen Zanfirico2.jpg|Zanfirico cane next to a ''murrine'' pattern
▲Image:Zanfirico and ballotini cane from Patchen.jpg|
Image:Canework detail - David Patchen 7359.jpg|A ''merletto'' pattern
Image:Canework in a tumbler - David Patchen 8906.jpg|Functional glassware with ballotini and zanfirico cane
</gallery>
==See also==
* [[Glass art]]▼
* [[Studio glass]]
==Notes==
{{Reflist|group=Notes}}
==References==
{{Reflist|2}}
▲*[[Glass art]]
{{Glass forming}}
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