19 October 2019
I: Warming Up
This year I'm not going to jump into extra lab slots. It took me half the summer to unload all the crap I made last year.
My first lab is one day after Labor Day. I guess that counts as fall. There's a pair of vultures who like to hang out on the chimney one building over. I wonder if they'll eat my reject pieces.
Our Instructor had us do the one-gather-one-reheat exercise again. Mine was still pretty small.
Sleepless made a tiny one. She let me take a picture of it. I think they look good together.
It's a dry heat.
There are five of us in this lab section. That's one more than ideal. Two of them are two of the most advanced students in the class. The fifth student is a beginner. One of the two came up with a schedule, assigning each of us a number, so that we all get the same amount of time. I stick on the cabinet under the schedule and write "Tuesday Night Crew" on it.
We all want to start with easy things to get our rhythm back. The beginner has to pull stems all night. She's pretty good. I start with a cup. I don't know how the purple specks got into my yellow frit, which looks completely yellow. I thought I used a clean tray. Anyway, I like it and I'm bringing this one to work.
Sleepless makes a pumpkin. I try a cat, my bubble too big for the holder we have the color in. On the floor I draw a diagram for Sleepless so that she can make a cat too.
We're both using my Copper Ruby Light frit. It's a vexing color. I've had it come out as maroon and brown, but never red. This time it's red. Finally. I put it on thin and hot. Sleepless' pumpkins are red too.
The cat lives in Jersey City now.
My attempt at gathering two rods goes awry when all the air stays in the collar and the colors don't move together. I keep it anyway because it's a new purple and I don't know what it'll look like.
The answer is "ugly." I'll try again later. Some colors are funny that way.
Yeesh. This is either garbage or art.
Still, though, I got three pieces in, and I even like one of them.
At work the next day I prep the one-gather-one-reheat for sand blasting. I want to do the reverse of what I did last year, which was this:
It's a lot more work to do the drips in reverse. I have to make the drips, cover the rest of the cup, then peel away the drips.
When I get to class the next night I dash off to the sand blaster. I think it's definitely more trouble than it was worth.
Classmate's Partner tries to teach me how to make a vase. It looks better in photos than it does in real life. For one thing, it's too small to hold anything more than a handful of dandelions.
The lip is off-kilter too. Maybe it'll be good for salad dressing, as long as the dressing is thick.
II: What Happens With Color
One of the advanced advanced students offers us some of his green aventurine frit. I'm all about that! I wonder what it'll look like against a white core bubble. By the time I've layered on the frit, I've got so much glass that I'm in a #10 block, which I'm still not used to. When I turn around to put the punty on, there's a group of people standing at the door, watching. Oh, lord, not now. "Can you guys not watch me? It's making me nervous. Thanks." They disappear. I get the punty on and manage a reasonable shape.
I have the Copper Ruby Light frit out again. I use it on part of a cat and aventurine on the rest. The colors are better than the shape, but at least the red is red. The green is the sparkly darkness I expected.
Might as well take another crack at a vase. I use Copper Ruby Light and try to repeat the steps Classmate's Partner talked me through last week. I make my jack line too far in, so now there's far too much glass on the neck. The shape is better than last time, though. I only manage to pull the neck so far. What to do with the rest? Cut it off or spin it out? "I'm gonna spin it out," I tell Sleepless. Why not?
OK, this thing looks ridiculous. And not at all red.
OK, so let's go over what happened with color today. The ever-vexing Copper Ruby Light, which, for the record, is a difficult color to get right, is a "striking" color. The frit looks white. It takes the right amount of heat, and the right amount of frit, to get the red we want. Too much too cold and it's a muddy maroon. Too little and it almost disappears, leaving only a slightly amethyst-brown hint. Layer it on hot and keep it hot and maybe, just maybe, it'll turn red for you. That's Alchemy's advice, and if he doesn't have the secret, nobody does.
What about the aventurine? Used by itself or as a top coating it will appear a dull green. Encased in clear glass it will be a deep green sparkle. Layered on a white background, the green looks lighter, and the sparkle is muted.
Same day, same color, different application:
By itself, encased in clear (a leftover pumpkin stem), it sparkles (zoom in):
So, reading left to right: Copper Ruby Light done wrong; Copper Ruby Light done right, with encased aventurine; aventurine on white; and encased aventurine by itself.
While I've been messing around, Sleepless has been cranking out pumpkins. Over at the other bench, the advanced advanced students have been making pumpkins too.
Later that night I text Sleepless: "Time for me to get on the pumpkin train."
Glass pumpkins. They're so kitsch. I'd never understood why anyone would want one. It took being surrounded by them at the Corning Museum of Glass to make me tell myself that I'd only buy one if it were purple. Well, there was a purple pumpkin for sale, and I bought it. Now look at me. I'm surrounded by glass pumpkins again and I feel the urge to make some of my own. I still think they're tacky. Or not. Maybe?
III: No Control Whatsoever
So much for not jumping into extra lab sessions. LT1 gave me and Alchemy a chance to work together on a Wednesday afternoon, with enough advance notice that I was able to juggle my work schedule to do it.
There are only three of us in here today. The third is a beginner. We take turns helping her.
There's a scrap of glass on the floor that I'm going to keep. I don't know what I'll do with it, but I like it all the same.
It's hot in here, as hot as it was my first day a year ago.
I start by getting on the pumpkin train. I make three, none of which turns out very well. They're too small, too thin, and too uneven. They've lost the mold shape too. One is going straight from the annealer to the scrap can.
I completely missed when I put the stems on. They're too thin. You're not supposed to see the break-off; the stem is supposed to cover it up.
(In October I sell these to friends for a donation to the
Ride for McBride scholarship fund.)
The temperature is creeping up.
I can't control the pipe when my hands are sweaty. I'm using a rod of Capri Blue that I've rolled in Alchemy's secret frit. I love the color of Capri Blue. I hate working with it. I've tried half a dozen times and succeeded maybe twice. It's soft. It goes floppy in an instant. Now my bubble is collapsing onto itself in the glory hole.
Alchemy is all for letting whatever happens happen. I take the collapsing bubble back to the bench and re-block it. When we give it air again, we get a ripple along the center. Fortunately there's room at the top to make it smooth and round I like how it looks. I shape it into a small bowl and put it away.
OK, now it's just fucking hot.
I try a chunk of the new purple rod and roll it in Alchemy's secret frit to see what will happen. I'm going for something simple this time: a cat. I screw it up. I blow it too thin, and when I go to pull the ears, the head collapses. I heat it, get some air into it, and inadvertently turn it into a Pusheen.
When we knock it off the pipe, part of the body goes with it.
It's not a total loss. Now I know how to make a Pusheen cat. I also know that the secret frit reacts with the purple. And I now know for sure that I don't like the color of this purple rod. Maybe I'll be able to trade it with a classmate for something better. (As for the cat, it winds up in the scrap bin.)
Alchemy shows us a picture of the thermometer from years ago. 118. I feel 8 degrees better.
I tell the beginner, "It's not always like this." That's what one of my first lab classmates told me on a very hot day. I hope she's not discouraged.
IV: Interlude
At work, the window sill glass casts evening shadows on the drawn blinds.
At home, the afternoon sun lights up last semester's cups and throws color into the sink.
V: Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!
I'm making more pumpkins. They're orange this time, with molded green tops. I manage to hold the mold shape on these, but they're uneven, and when I set the stem on, I miss. There are gaps. Sleepless suggests filling them in with glue.
At work we have UV-curable glue that dries clear. I fill in the holes with that and leave it at work. The other one gets sold for charity.
Sleepless has to leave early. That's okay. It gives me time to practice with a blow hose. Our Instructor doesn't like us using them because it discourages teamwork. I like the control I get.
I pick up a yellow rod and then a cherry red one. I want to pull up on the red and draw something that will look like trees with the red on the yellow. What I get is a wavy pattern instead. LT1 arrives towards the end; it's getting on to 9:00. She stands by me and gives me encouraging suggestions as I do my best to round out the top.
It looks like waves, or like rolling hills.
VI: More Experiments with Color
I get another chance to experiment with color when I take an empty slot and end up working with Glass Ninja, my lab partner from last semester.
Speaking of last semester, I never noticed until now that the handle on one of the annealing ovens has a glass marble in it.
I always felt rushed last semester when I worked with Glass Ninja. Not today. I'm going to take my time. I want to make a vase shape. Glass Ninja is good at that. He tells me how he does it and then leaves me pretty much alone. I try three times, twice playing with reactive colors and the third time with picking up sequential rods. I never get the shape I'm after; I don't lengthen two of them enough, and chicken out on the third because I like the shape the way it is.
This is a white core with Capri Blue and Alchemy's secret reactive frit on top of it.
When I mix the secret frit with Aqua Metallic, reactions happen. Unfortunately, I flub the shape.
I need to try this again!
Last time I started with red; this time I started with yellow. Both times, the yellow rod stretched more. Good to know.
This turned out thick. I could have blown it out more.
Here are the two yellow-red rod combinations together. The thinner the yellow stretches, the more transparent it gets. Good to know.
VII: Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!
I'm at the Princeton Free Wheelers Fall Picnic when I get a text from LT1 that there's an open slot in ten minutes. I skip the food, say my goodbyes, and ride home. I get half a shower; I'm only going to get grimy again. I eat half a lunch. I get to the studio an hour and a half into the session so that I can make more pumpkins with Alchemy.
I'm loading more glass onto my pipe today. I'm using the big mold, the one that sits up on the shelf, the one the advanced advanced students use on Tuesday nights. My communication with Alchemy misfires: he brings me glass for the stems without dropping using the mold for ridges. I don't notice on the first one until I've touched down. The second one comes in so hot that I can't control it. "I'll edit in post," I assure him after he apologizes.
Walking out at end of the day, Alchemy apologizes again for the stems. I assure him that it doesn't matter. "It's all practice." Our Instructor is walking with us and laughs when I say that I'll figure out pumpkins in time to start making ornaments.
I tell them about the advice I got on my first lab day last fall: "It takes years just to get bad." I tell them about the pep talk Tiny gave me last spring about not comparing myself to everyone else. "It's taken me until now to really understand that."
"Just play," Our Instructor says.
This pumpkin gets sold for charity as is.
I sand-blast the top of the purple one. It gets sold for charity too.
"I have glow powder!" Sleepless announces. We play. Her powder glows blue in the dark. I go home and order green.
VIII: Class Projects
I'm sitting at the sagging blue picnic table with Classmate's Partner and Low Key. We're early. Our Instructor comes out of the studio. Low Key asks, "What are we doing tonight?"
"Class projects," he says, "And I have two good leaders here."
I didn't realize he meant me as one of them. He chooses me, Classmate's Partner, and one other to head each of three teams. We choose a drawing from a first-time advanced student and get to work. Our team -- me, Glass Ninja, Tall Vase, Thelma or Louise (they always work together and I never can remember which one is which), and Grace -- has to put two funnels on either side of a sphere, and we go first. It's my job to direct traffic and figure out timing. At one point, Our Instructor is in position to give Thelma or Louise air for her sphere. I direct one of our team to take his place.
"I'm right here!" he protests.
"You're not on our team. I can't afford to pay an adjunct!" That cracks him up.
We get the thing into the annealer and stick around to watch the others.
On lab night, the advanced advanced students don't want to do a class project. Our fifth person is away. That leaves me and Sleepless. I suggest wrapping a goblet because she makes goblets and I like wrapping. I try to make some of the goblet. It fails when we break it off the punty. She puts the top into the annealing oven. She doesn't want to bother trying again.
I try to make a vase again, layering three colors on with clear glass in between. It fails too. The shape is off.
I cut the top off so that the layers can show.
I decide that I don't like the bottom either. I'm halfway through cutting it off when the piece cracks, sending chunks flying off the saw into the water tray around it. Oh well.
That thing about not taking extra classes? Forget it. Alchemy and I have fallen into a routine of working together on alternate Wednesday afternoons. This being class project week, we collaborate on a cat.
He does the setup. He picks up a rod, gathers clear over it, and then adds a second rod. I don't know how to do this. I take careful notes. When the second rod is sufficiently melted onto the gather, he rolls it in the secret frit and pulls it down over the clear glass.
Then he hands it off to me to shape it into a cat. This is really his creature. He did all the hard work. It pays off. The reaction is splendid and the layer of clear over it just right to send reflections up into the ears.I forget to center it before we break it off the pipe. It has a severe list. He grinds it down until it sits straighter.
I grind it some more, then he takes over again.
My pumpkin failure rate is still hovering around fifty percent.
I get one good one, smallish, with a molded stem.
The second one blows out wonky, and the stem is too cold, forcing us to use the torch and pull on it for far too long. The thing is destined for the discard bucket.
IX: I Guess You Had to Be There
I'm not happy with the way my vases are coming out. I want to try a drop vase, which involves getting the glass floppy hot and standing on the step over a damp paddle. Classmate's Partner guides me through it on class night.
I coat a gather with some cherry red frit I don't like very much. When I gather over that I wind up in a #10 block. Over my shoulder, I hear Alchemy making wisecracks about my emulating the advanced advanced students in my lab section. "It's gonna be big," Classmate's Partner says, "but we can do it."
He stands by me at the furnace as I turn and turn. "Not yet," he says. "Wait'll your almost out of control."
When I bring it to the step I can't see what's going on beneath my hands. "Tap tap," he says. "Blow," he says. "Lift," he says.
I can see a broad bottom forming. When I lift, it stays put and a long neck pulls up with the pipe. Until it cools enough for me to lift it to horizontal, I have no idea how long the vase is.
It's gigantic. It feels as if I've got two feet of glass on the end of the pipe. We have to score the neck to break it off onto the punty. Alchemy appears with a big file and begins to saw at it.
I go get a punty and shake my head, smirking, as I affix it to the bottom. "There's no way this is gonna work," I say.
It works, but the punty is hot, and the vase is drooping as I gingerly turn to bring it to the glory hole. My hands are sweating. I can't turn the rod fast enough to right the thing. I hear Thelma and Louise gasping across the room, and Alchemy cracking wise. Classmate's Partner dives in to help at the last minute, and we gingerly move it into the glory hole.
It's all I can do to mostly center the thing; I'd blown it out unevenly, of course. We do our best to smooth out the top. When we break it off the punty rod and put it in the annealer, I'm laughing and shaking my head.
I collapse into a chair next to Thelma and Louise and Our Instructor. "Too much glass. I can't work that big."
Our Instructor says, "I can work that big from an 8 block." The trick is to work thinner.
What felt like two feet ends up being thirteen inches. Even with the part we left on the pipe, it can't have been more than sixteen. Still, it towers over everything else I've made.
"Nice bong," one of my friends comments on Facebook. Duuuuuude. Another friend wants it. "No, you don't," I tell her.
X: Ghosts!
I have an idea.
The first one is okay, but I missed a spot. He's bald.
And a little too happy.
I need the face to stretch more. I should put it on earlier.
I put it on too early. Everything moves up from the face. I wind up with a hydrocephalic ghost.
Sleepless likes it. She names it Schmendrick. It's hers now.
The third time, working with Alchemy, I flub the drawing. It looks as if he's singing in a choir.
XII: I'm Totally Off My Cat Game
Blue hates me. I can't control it. This cat is a mess.
There's no time to try again. There are pumpkins to be made!
XII: Try Another Vase
In class again, Classmate's Partner and I make another drop vase, this one smaller and more controlled. It's okay, but not nearly as hilarious as the one from last week. I also chickened out on working the top.
When I get to class the following Tuesday, he draws instructions on the floor for me before he leaves.
I don't get a chance to try. I'm too busy with pumpkins.
At home I put the two vases next to each other. They live on the dining room table because I don't know what else to do with them.
A week later, Sleepless and I try another drop vase. This time I've got a reasonable amount of glass. I bring it to the paddle and drop it down on a blob of water. I can't see what's happening, but Classmate's Partner and Sleepless report that the water turned to steam and sent the bottom straight up into the bubble. There's no need to punty it; we just break it off and put it away.
It looks like a neuron.
I grind the top flat.
With Sleepless, I finally get the shape I want. Or at least I think I do, until it comes out of the oven and I'm unimpressed.
I like my mistakes better.
XIII: Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins!
Here's what a rainy day looks like from inside the studio.
Pumpkin frit:
Pumpkins, with curled stems! It was a team effort. Curling stems is easier than I thought, but not easy to get right.
This stem is goofy, and also on its way to a charity contributor.
I'm keeping this one. It glows green.
f
A week later there are two more:
This one is going to a friend who missed out on the first round of the charity sale.
I'm keeping this one.
XIV: Overlays
Under Alchemy's supervision, I go for a Gold Ruby Extra overlay on Enamel White. Yummy!
Alchemy does one, but picks up the wrong rod first. Not sure what he's going to do with it, He pulls the gray over the red until he decides that I'm going to make a cat out of it.
"It looks like a panda," he says when it's finished.
XV: Critique Night
"I feel like a sophomore who has to choose a major and can't decide." They all laugh, because they've all been there.
After crit is the redistribution. I unpack the suitcase, and everything goes in one of three places: the reject box (where pieces might be sold for charity or thrown into the scrap bucket); the glass cabinet or the windowsill; or into work.
The neuron vase takes the place of the pumpkin in the reading nook across from my office.
I'm not sure what I want to do with the aventurine-over-white vase, which looks like a layer of flourescent cells on a white background. I stick it in the corner where people eat lunch.
Later I change my mind and bring it into my office where I can keep an eye on it.
The Capri Blue proto-vase takes the place of a similarly-shaped piece I made years ago, with lots of help, when I had no idea what was going on.
At home, the hilarious mistake sits between two pumpkins. The overlay cup gets a spot on the shelf, between spring 2019 and fall 2018.
Everything else from crit is on a window sill, either upstairs or in the kitchen. Already I have run out of space.
XVI: What's Next?
More work with rods and overlays. Try to make a Maine coastline again. Play with scrap glass. Drop more vases. Shape more vases. Make ornaments. Make mistakes. And don't make any more pumpkins. Well, maybe a few.
