About From Scratch Series - FSS

Starting in the Fall of 2016, I embarked on a new journey taking me into the world of Borosilicate color making. Beginning very simply, and working my way towards more complicated color making, this project has been challenging in ways I did not expect. Making color in a furnace is nothing like flame working. It is a completely different skill, requiring technical knowhow that I did not have. Knowledge of chemistry and a stomach for expensive failure were two requirements that I had to brace myself for. The following is a list of colors I have made "from scratch" and blended in the past 6 years. Pieces using these colors are marked as "From Scratch Series" or "FSS" 

• MB-1 Big Sur Blue
• MB-2 Big Sur Fog
• MB-3 Tahoe
• MB-4 Indigo Silk
• MB-5 Maidenhair Fern
• MB-6 Kings River Blue
• MB-7 Hyalite
• MB-8 Flourite
• MB-9 Cosmos
• MB-10 Dopa-Nectar
• MB-11 Nectar
• MB-12 Sour Nectar
• MB-13 Dark Nectar
• MB-14 Dopalite
• MB-15 Starry Purple
• MB-16 Candy Cheese
• MB-17 Dopamine
• MB-18 Starry Sky
• MB-19 Nonametech
• MB-20 Half and Half
• MB-21 Whole Milk
• MB-22 Cream
• MB-23 Skim Milk
• MB-24 Harmonics
• MB-25 Furnace Blend (highly variable colorations with UV)
• MB-26 Vintage #3

The origin of "From Scratch Series"

"From Scratch Series" or "FSS" is a phrase we etch onto a piece when colors used in a piece are those I produced in my furnaces. These colors are truly unique since most of these colors were "one pot" runs. This means I only made one production run of the color. And that means less than 50 pounds of the color exist in the world. These colors have proven to be stable but are highly experimental and often represent milestones in my color making journey. Some "From Scratch" pieces are simple accented pipes, others are full color Circle Solos.  

-John M