Liquid when hot and rigid when cold, glass has the ability to freeze motion. Shaffer explores this aspect of the material in this series of sculptures that combine glass and metal. Although this metal object looks as if it was merely dipped into hot glass and allowed to cool, this is not the case. Metal and glass cool at different rates, and if the cooling is not controlled, the sculpture will break. This sculpture was made by taking found objects—in this case, an old, hand-forged iron tool—and combining them with hot glass inside a kiln. For the sculptures with colored glass, Shaffer heated and slumped glass over the tools inside a kiln. For the sculptures with colorless glass, Shaffer dipped the metal parts in hot glass in a process that she calls “Dippity-Do.” Then the sculptures were placed inside a kiln so that their cooling could be controlled. In these works, tools that are old and no longer used acquire a new life and new meaning through their combination with glass. Shaffer says: “The structural system I create allows the glass to move with a fluidity and freedom you can’t possibly create with a mold. Because I work with gravity, the strangest unknown force in the universe, I say I work with nature.”