3 November 2018
10/22/18
It's week 10 already. I hope I remember everything from last week's private lesson.
It's not hot in here today.
The two pieces I made last week, the ones with the cracked bottoms, are out of the annealer. My goal today is to do the same thing while keeping the pieces intact.
I have the same lab partner as last week, which is good. We work well together. She makes more ornaments and I get four threaded bowls into the oven without cracking a single one. Tonight was a good night. I guess I'm out of my slump.
10/24/18
The first thing I do when I get to class is go to the locker to find Monday's bowls.
There's nothing there.
The annealer malfunctioned and had to be restarted; all of our work is still in there. Maybe it survived, maybe it didn't, and we won't know until the oven is opened tomorrow.
So I take a picture of the bucket of blocks and the outside of the annealer instead.
Tonight our instructor is going to demonstrate more applied techniques.
First he makes a piggy bank by blowing a bubble bigger than I can handle, then by attaching four feet, two ears, and a nose. Where the pipe was becomes the slot. There's no hole at the bottom to retrieve change; it's a one-way piggy bank.
Next is handles. With the aide of a senior glassblower who also oversees all of the art studios in the building, our instructor makes a mug with a handle. Then the senior glassblower makes one. Their methods are different. I watch intently.
When it's our turn to try I tell my classmate to go first. He's good at making larger pieces and seems at ease shaping his mug. When he shapes the handle he pulls too hard, distorting the mug. He rescues it with a little heat and some fancy jack work. Glassblowing, I've been told, is all about the save.
I turn out a decent enough mug, a little more curvy than my classmate's. When it comes time for the handle I'm flying blind. I affix the bottom end, cut the hot glass, with an assist from our instructor, and let the mug and half-handle swing upside down. I grab the handle most of the way up, affix it to the top of the mug, and fold back the remaining glass. It hardens before I can smash it into the rest of the handle, but I really like the way it looks. "Let's put it away," I say, which is what we say when we're ready to get a piece into the annealer.
Next our instructor demonstrates how to use an optic mold. He uses the same mold people have been making pumpkins with, only he turns his into a wide-open bowl. My classmate gives it a shot, making something between a mug and a bowl.
When my turn comes everything goes to shit. I ask for air without cooling the bottom and the sides blow out; it collapses in the glory hole. I ask if I can try again. "Yeah, but hurry," our instructor says. Now I'm nervous, and things go from bad to worse. I mess up the punty. I lose the mold shape from so much reheating. I'm forgetting everything I learned last week.
"What can I do to get you to remember?" our instructor asks, and now I'm a wreck.
"I have to not be nervous and not in a hurry," I say, at a loss for a better explanation. If only Monday's bowls were out of the annealer I could show him that I can do this.
I'm bothered all the way home, all night, and all of Thursday. The ride I was going to lead is going to be rained out. I might as well get some practice in. I decide to email our instructor to ask if there's an opening in the studio on Saturday. I end it with "#slowlearner."
He writes back that I'm not a slow learner; it's just that I need a way to remember everything. I tell him I need muscle memory and not to be nervous.
On Friday he lets me know that there's a slot on Saturday afternoon.
10/26/18
I've had a lot of sleep and a lot of coffee. I don't know who will be in the studio when I get there, but it doesn't matter. I have a plan: I'm going to practice making a bowl, a mug, and handles.
When I arrive two of my previous lab partners are on their way out. The shop is crowded: our instructor is there with two advanced students, plus the woman from the gym. My lab partner is someone I haven't met before.
I gather Monday's and Wednesday's work from the locker. The troublesome annealer is now officially dead.
Our instructor is trying to move the thing away from the wall by himself. Never one to pass up a chance to look tough, I go over to help him. We pull in vain, our sneakers sliding on the cement floor. He disappears and returns with gliders, plastic on the bottom and foam on the top, just like the ones we have at the gym for ab work. It takes three of us to tilt the annealer, two of us simultaneously kicking the gliders under the oven's steel feet. When all four legs are ready we pull the oven away from the wall. I hadn't noticed the decoration on the side until now.
I start off with attempting to open a bowl and manage to remember all the things I need to remember. Still I can't get it to open as wide as I'd wanted it to. Good enough. I put it away.
While my lab partner is at the furnace or glory hole I watch what our instructor is making. He has a hefty piece of glass blown into a fish shape. The two advanced students are bringing him hot blobs of glass ("bits," they're called), which he affixes and cuts. At first I think he's making a fish, but they keep bringing him bits while the woman from the gym minds the furnace door and directs traffic. He's covering this fish-thing with bits, end to end, all the way around.
This continues well into my turn at the furnace. I'm going to make a mug and stick as many handles on it as I can. Between all the bits for the not-a-fish-thing and my request for handle bits, there's a run on punty rods and much traffic at the furnace. I can't get to the glory hole at all, heating my piece in the furnace instead.
I'm two handles in, getting ready for the third. "You're not gonna get any more on," says the woman from the gym. "I'm gonna try," I tell her. "It's just for practice."
We get the third handle on and I go up to the furnace to flash the piece. One of the handles tumbles into the molten glass below. "Told ya," she says. A second one falls off.
I forge ahead anyway because I need the practice. We get another handle on. Another one falls off. I shrug and decide to put it away anyhow. When I knock it off the punty a chunk of glass falls off with it. My partner puts the mug in the annealer anyway.
During a break I carry last week's work out to the picnic table for pictures. I like how the mug came out. Three of the four bowls are almost level.
I have more success with my next attempt; this time I'm keeping it to one handle. I'm at the final step, where I shape the handle with a wooden rod. I hear cracking but I can't see anything. I flash the mug and get ready to put it away. As I flash it I see the crack going from halfway up the mug down towards the punty. We put it in the annealer anyway, and I insist that we take out the last one I put in. We're not supposed to throw away any of our work, but I wanted to toss this one before it went in.
Through all of this, after a second not-fish, our instructor has been fixing the annealer. He's been going back and forth with his arms full of coiled wire. It's time to move the oven back to where it was. "Go help him," the woman from the gym says. "You're stronger than he is." I doubt that.
Sliding the annealer back is easy enough. Removing the gliders isn't. I'm pretty sure my back is going to be talking to me later. I look over at the woman from the gym. "Tell [our trainer] I'm still a meathead."
My lab partner and I work well together. We have enough in common in our backgrounds that we can geek out a little. At the end of the day he suggests that I come back on more Saturdays.
"I'll try," I say, "but only on rainy ones.
"Why rainy?"
I have to explain the bike thing.
I'm in a good mood on the drive home. I take out the mug for another picture, at which point I discover that it's a wee tad tippy.
I take the threaded bowls upstairs to be sorted into one of two piles. The first is work that, for now, I want to keep, that could easily be displaced into the meltdown box as better work comes along. The keepers are now in two boxes. I'm getting better at this; I can handle more glass and I have more control than I used to.
The discard pile is also growing. I look forward to bringing it back to the shop to be melted down. We're not allowed to discard or give away any of our work until the semester is over.
10/29/18
It's week 11.
I'm envious of all the colored glass the advanced students use.
I've now had the same lab partner three weeks in a row, which is nice. The senior glassblower who demonstrated the handle last week is in the studio and gives us tips on how to get a good handle going. I roll a slab of glass on the marver and pull it flat so we can practice before I try to put a handle on a mug. It takes a few tries before we figure out the heat and thickness. It also helps that my lab partner has her own diamond shears, ones that actually cut.
I make three mugs. One fails before it's finished. The second one cracks as we put it away. Short on time, I stay small for the third one, which makes it into the annealer.
As we're all cleaning up for the night we're talking about the advanced class next semester. I don't know if I'm ready for it. My lab partner says the only requirement is taking this beginner class. "There are only two classes," one of the advanced student explains. People take it over and over again. "It's like a club," he says. I'll have to think about it. Not that I haven't been all along.
One of the advanced students is finishing some pieces on the grinder, making them more stable when they stand. I comment on how the light plays on the inside of his highball glasses. "Your work is like liquid," I tell him.
"You really like my stuff," he says.
"Yeah. You have so much control. The lines are so clean."
"And the glass is transparent," he says.
"Yes! Everyone else is using opaque colors. I don't get it. It's glass. We should see through it."
10/30/18
I prefer biking to work after rush hour. There's no traffic. Nobody is using the bike lane as a passing lane. I'm free to let my mind wander a little once I get past Province Line Road.
Our instructor has told us several times that he wants us to "find our voice," that he wants us to think like artists rather than churn out the same thing over and over again as if we were heading for a career in a production studio. At the same time, we need to get good at the basics. In my mind that means making the same thing over and over again until I get good at it.
So what's my voice then? How can I possibly know that when I can't make a bowl that flares?
I don't know what my glass voice is but I know what my biking voice is. It took me several years to find it. There are the flatland fastboys, the speedy hill climbers, the number-crunchers, the randonneurs, the racers; I am none of these, yet I ride with them all and still enjoy it. I will never be a fastboy, a mountain goat, glued to Strava, logging 250 miles in one day, competing. I will never be a gallery artist, a master of glass, an innovator, a big name; but I can still have fun in the studio making dopey hamster bowls with blobby handles. I can still have fun making whatever I want to make, whatever that turns out to be.
In the afternoon I try to register for the advanced glassblowing class. Because I'm only auditing I have to wait until next Monday.
10/31/18
It's warmer in the studio tonight, but that doesn't matter because we won't be blowing glass. It's movie night, apparently.
I fetch my mugs from the locker. One of them is badly cracked. I ask our instructor why this keeps happening.
He takes a look at the fissure and points to two spots. "Water," he says. "This is water and this is water."
I'm confused.
"Did you use the shaping tool on the handle?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"Was it wet?"
"Aha!" I had pulled it straight out of the bucket. "Can I throw this away?"
"Yes."
I'm relieved that the error is one I can easily fix. I take the piece over to the bucket, where another one of my cracked mugs, the one from Saturday, is resting. I put the two next to each other and document the atrocity.
I take the two survivors out to the sagging blue picnic table to be photographed. I haven't been able to replicate the fancy handle from my first attempt.
As for flaring the sides of a bowl, I'm still not getting it.
I need to work on handle alignment too. It's tough to get it right when the hot glass is hanging upside-down. Maybe I shouldn't have it hanging upside-down.
Our instructor leads us into the sculpture classroom. The class assistant is there too.
We start with a short video from the 1950s. There's no narration, just jazz and fast cuts of men -- always men -- in a factory, blowing and shaping. One has a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he puts air into a pipe. "I like the cigarette," I say out loud.
"It gets better!" the assistant and our instructor tell us.
And it does. About a minute later we see another fellow smoking a pipe as he blows glass.
The scene cuts to a bottle-making machine making an error as the music changes to counting in something that seems to be German. So this is all in Europe somewhere.
The film switches back to jazz and the men again, and then we see a young man minding a bottle production line as he rolls a cigarette. Our instructor murmurs something that prompts me to say, "This is Europe; it's probably just tobacco." The fellow in the film reaches for a tool, lifts one of the glasses, and touches the bottom of his cigarette to it, lighting it.
As the credits roll it becomes apparent that the film is Dutch. "Ah, it's the Netherlands!" I say. "Maybe it is the wacky terbaccy!"
Next up is a documentary of a family in an Afghan village forgotten by time, a glass factory of sorts, fueled by wood and home-ground glass. It ends with a postscript about the Russian invasion wiping out almost the entire village, and with it the last glassmakers following protocols first written in Cuneiform.
Then we're on to modern documentaries, one of which is an old promotional film for fellowships at Wheaton Arts. I find myself missing the place as the camera pans across the outside of the studio, which, apparently, hasn't changed in 30 years. As the credits roll I catch Don Gonzalez's name in the list of fellows. The next documentary features Wheaton too, and our instructor points out Don in an old group photo. Small world, because the same documentary shows a young Skitch Manion (hell, he's still young!) in his early Wheaton days.
Next is a longer documentary featuring a handful of artists who led the way in the early days of glassblowing as art rather than production, and finally another one featuring some newer artists and one of the originators. One of them stands out. I think it's because he's using transparent glass and bright colors, because it looks organic, because it's celebrating the glassiness of glass instead of hiding it behind opacity. Or maybe it just reminds me of my favorite cane glass beads. Or maybe that's why I like cane glass beads so much. Or something finding my voice something something.
It's 9:00 already. Our instructor switches on the lights. I tell him and the assistant, "I have a head full of ideas but it's all with color."
"Well." our instructor says, "next semester you get to work with color," so I guess I'm passing this class.
On the way home have more ideas. I see a series of colorful mugs, bright and transparent, each of a different color, each with a handle that's a different color from the body. I see clear glass mugs with colorful threads winding around them. I see colorful mugs with colorful threads, all transparent.
At home I move more of my old work to the discard pile. The earliest hamster bowls move down. Saturday's bowl goes down there too. I move four of the hamster bowls into the box of pieces that need to be finished -- ground down to remove the rough punty marks, leveled off so they stand sturdy.
I pull out my sketch book and start drawing. I have a plan for my next studio session.
11/1/18
I retrieve the first hamster bowl from the discard pile and put it in the keeper box. It's ugly, lumpy, misshapen, and has two trapped air bubbles in it. It's awful and I need to hang onto it.
11/2/18
Saturday's weather is not going to be good biking weather. Jim cedes his day to the Hill Slugs, so I put in a ride for Sunday. I'm going back and forth over whether or not I should ask about glassblowing studio availability on Saturday. I decide to go for it and find out that there's nothing open.
I'm not surprised, and I don't think I should be trying to slide in there every time it rains on a Saturday. What is surprising is that I now feel the way I feel when I can't get out on a good biking day. Our next class session will be a guest artist night and we won't get any practice in. Will I lose my momentum if I don't get in front of the furnace twice in one week?
I'm on my feet most of the day at work. I'm there for close to ten hours. At home I can barely keep my eyes open. I collapse into bed at 11:30 p.m.and don't see the clock again until 8:30 a.m.
11/3/18
I'm halfway through brushing my teeth when I remember that I haven't checked my phone for emails. That's probably a good thing.
On the screen is a text, sent at midnight. There's an opening in the studio from 9:00 to 1:00 today if I want it.
Yes! But there's no way I could be there before 10:30. After a few texts and a call into the studio, I'm hastily getting dressed and brewing coffee. I throw all my hair up into a bun and a clip, not even combed, and get some breakfast. Before I head out I decide that I can spend two minutes to comb my hair. I grab the coffee and go, getting to the studio at 10:30 on the nose.
My usual partner is the one who is partnerless today; I'm glad to return the favor. She's finishing a large vase when I get there. She's got great control. She makes everything look so easy.
One of the advanced students is warming discarded scraps above the pipe warmer. He'll use them to roll into his pieces.
I tell her my plan for the day, based on my Wednesday night doodles. She thinks it'll be funny and we get to work.
First off is a regular mug. We've worked out the best way to deliver the glass for handles. I'm not trying to be fancy at this point; I just want to be able to get them even and shaped correctly. I get the mug into the annealer without incident.
There's a reminder about Wednesday's guest artist night on the chalkboard.
For the second one I gather more glass and things go immediately awry. The bubble is off-center. I take a flier, heating the glass then having her put air into it while I shape it with the wet newspaper. This somehow works, mostly, and by the time our instructor walks in I have the thing mostly rescued. I know he's looking at the uneven jack line as he stops at our bench. I look up and tell him, "What I lack in skill I make up for in ambition." He says something about ambition going a long way and moves on.
"I'm always so nervous when he's in here," I tell my partner. She laughs. I need to get over it. Fat chance.
Before I put the handle on I add a thread, not random like I did with the bowls, but spiraling down the piece. We get the handle in place and put it away. I look at the punty as it separates. It's clean. Our instructor is across the room, watching us. I smile. He gives me thumbs up.
While my partner is working I mind the furnace door and stay out of the way. The woman from the gym is here. We talk a little. I see something shiny on the floor and, thinking it's glass, move over to pick it up and get it out of the way. I approach it as if it might be hot, which is the way anything in a glassblowing shop should be approached. It's not hot. It's a candy wrapper.
Speaking of candy, people go for sugar in this place the way people go for caffeine where I work. There is always a bowl of candy around. There are Fla-Vor-Ice packs in the freezer. There are pastries and cookies. Today there is coffee too, but, of course I have my own.
The rain is gone. It's just wind now.
One of the advanced students blows into a cornucopia mold he found discarded somewhere. He breaks the glass above the neck and puts it away. When it's annealed he'll smooth the opening. He says it's okay for me to post a picture.
I want to take a picture of my second mug in the annealer. I take my phone out so that I can get off a quick shot while my lab partner is putting her ornament away. My phone is dead.
There's no time left for the third part of my plan. That'll have to wait until Monday, which is fine, because I don't want our instructor to see it until it's finished. I'll have a different partner on Monday.
I'm driving home in brilliant sunlight, 40-mph gusts of wind whipping leaves across the highway. The few clouds filter the light enough to make the fall colors pop. I'm feeling nearly as happy as I do when I've finished a good bike ride. I'm not even rattled that I might have to run to the Apple store and get my phone fixed.I'm sure the coffee is a common factor, but that's not all of it.
Tomorrow I'm leading the Hill Slugs over the Sourland Mountain to Flemington. We're in peak fall color now. The sky will be clear. I'm hoping for some good pictures.
11/4/18
It's 12:51 a.m. I wanted to be asleep half an hour ago but I've been blogging for an hour instead. Good thing we're getting that extra hour of sleep tonight.
Lordy, I have some time-consuming hobbies.
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