It is one thing to make a flameworked blown glass star, but an additional process altogether to fill the shape with electrified inert gas that creates plasma light. This is the final result of my most recent sculpture that is inspired by the above illustration from folio 82r of the Voynich Manuscript. As I mentioned in a previous post, this illustration has wavy lines near the star that resemble lightning. Whether or not this association was intended by the manuscript’s makers, it felt fitting to combine this theme into the star itself, so I filled it with krypton gas that produces a subtle plasma “lightning” inside the star.

This sculptural medium tends to inspire questions about its process: viewers immediately wonder how it was made, and I may write about more about this specifically in a different post. But I will only just summarize an overview here (some of which is shown in the video below) I coated the inside of the clear transparent glass with a blue phosphor, based on the color of this star in the original illustration. This looks white when not activated. Then I attached an electrode, and next heated the glass in a kiln and connected it to a vacuum system. It is filled with a fairly low pressure of gas that is sealed inside. If I had used a higher pressure, it would have created more fast-moving filaments of light, but I am happy with the more subtle effect this makes. (I wish I had a dozen copies of the glass form to experiment with different lighting effects in each of them, but maybe this will continue as a future project!)

In the video, I show the blue light of the star, which glows on its own and also changes and attracts to my hand.