|
 Glass Blowing...
by Demian Ginther
 This is reprinted from my blog.... figured you all would be interested as well...
---------------------------------------
So, for Christmas, Laura got me a beginner's glass blowing class with a local art glass studio called The Robbins Ranch. Today I drove up there and took my class, and what an amazing time I had. First of all, Dana Robbins is a fantastic guy, and fascinating to talk to, and one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He is great at teaching the art of glassblowing, and he made it really easy to feel confident and at ease with the glass. The glass. Oh, the glass. 2200 degrees, molten, gooey, glowing... seriously amazing stuff. You dip the tip of the blowpipe or punty into the furnace full of molten glass, spin it around, gathering up the most amazing substance on the other end. It looks like glowing honey as it spools into a lump of gooey heat. If you get too close to the furnace, you will know it. It's seriously hot around the entrance of the furnace, and my hands are still a little red from exposure. Rotating the blowpipe as you pull a beautiful gather out of the furnace, you can't help but marvel at the amazing orange glow emanating from the glass. A quick marver to firm up the walls and you blow into the end, watching the sides of your cylinder begin to puff out and form a starter bubble in the glass. The glass is heavy on the end of the pipe, and you have to keep it spinning the entire time or gravity will betray you and whatever you were making will end up on the floor.. a floor model. I started out with some clear glass, just a blob on the end of a punty, and learned to use the jacks, a tool that looks like a giant pair of tweezers. Solid objects like paperweights or doorknobs don't require as much work as a hollow piece, but they are still not easy to keep centered and looking good. I then made a small container, gathering glass on the end of a blow tube and making a starter bubble, blowing it out... Dana transferred the closed end to a punty with a blob of molten glass on it, then we knocked it off the blowpipe and I used the jacks to spread the lip open. Feeling much more confident, we decided I would use some colored frit, and I managed to make a 5 inch high tumbler glass using much the same method, but gathering extra glass after the first starter bubble had been introduced. After drinking a lot of water, eating some lunch, and chatting a bit, it was time to make something else. I decided that I would make drawer pulls for my daughter's desk which we had put in her room a couple of months before. We had intended to buy some interesting pulls for it's drawers, but had kept the boring wooden ones for now. This was similar to the paperweight, except that after the first gather, I rolled the glass in some colored frit and then gathered a clear casing over it. After shaping it with a graphite block, I used the jacks to split the bubble in half, necking it down and pulling it out to make a mushroom shape. I can't even express how exciting I was, actually harnessing this molten substance, taming it and making it do (more or less) what I wanted it to do. Dana was a great teacher, reminding me of all the little things you need to be mindful of, centering your piece, continually rolling the pipe on the bench, how much pressure to apply with the jacks... 4 knobs later, I had a set of three that were more or less the same size and one smaller one which I will probably use on the drawer on the computer desk. My final piece was another tumbler, this time larger and with 2 colors applied. The first color was applied after the first small gather, to color the entire tumbler, the second color was applied on the outside, a black frit that haloes to silver if applied on the exterior of the glass. This tumbler ended up about 7 inches high and looked pretty good, if a little lopsided. By this time I was exhausted. The heat of the furnaces, the glory hole, and the weight of the glass on the end of the pipes and punties had really taken it's toll on me and I was ready to be done. I have a deep sense of accomplishment though... This was really an amazing experience. If you've ever wondered what it's like to blow glass, or even just make a paperweight out of glass, you should buy Ed Schmid's Book and then book a class and try it!
|
