Balloons, Fall 2024
12 December 2024
This semester begins my seventh year of this oddball hobby. I keep forking over tuition, which is now nearly twice what I paid in 2018. I'm running out of space to put all this stuff. There's only so much I can give away, and I'm terrible at selling what I make. That would be too much like work, which I don't want glassblowing to become.
I was on Cape Breton Island, up in Canada, doing my best to hold myself together under social and athletic pressure, when the fall semester began on August 22.
Who begins a semester on August 22?
I was in Bar Harbor, Maine, running around with my cycling friends, trying to do all the things, when class met for the second week.
Which was August 29. Still August. Before Labor Day.
Anyway.
We'd found out only weeks before that the Colonel was out (sorry not sorry) and Joy was in.
Joy is a former classmate who has years of ceramics experience, went on to study glassblowing some more after they left our class, had their work on exhibit in various places, and jumped at the chance to come back to teach us.
Still pinching pennies, the school had merged the beginner and the advanced classes into one. The lockers that we had to vacate last spring never returned, and the ones we were told we could use, off in another building, had plastic bottoms. That doesn't work for storing steel pipes hot out of the furnace, and when All The Glass pointed that out to the Keeper of the Lockers, my effort to secure one ground to a halt. I was doing all this by phone from Bar Harbor, and by the end of all the back and forth, I was resigned to having to haul my pipes, tools, and glass color from my car to the classroom every week.
*****
By the time I showed up on the third week of class, for my first blowing slot, it was September 4.
The signs on the annealer doors, which confused the Colonel so much that he insisted they be removed, were back.
The "lab" slots (I still dislike calling them that, but whatever) had been worked out. Although there were 18 of us, the available times had been drastically reduced. The only open evening was Wednesday; All The Glass and I had snapped up two out of the four spots ahead of time. The third spot was taken by a beginner I'll call Jumping Bean, who had blown glass here a long time ago. The fourth spot was vacant.
All The Glass was on a mission to decorate 50 feet of chain-link fence that surrounded his garden. To do this, he was planning to make an assortment of flat flowers, some from pour-in molds and others hand-blown vessels cut and spun out. He figured he'd need several hundred of the poured flowers.
Having spent the summer thinking the Colonel would be back, I'd come up with something semi-sculptural that I was actually interested in: balloons. Balloons can be made with hooks. They can be given away as ornaments. They can be hung up and not occupy shelf space.
*****
I was going to include far too many photos, chronologically, of what I've done over the semester. I was halfway finished plodding through that when I got bored with the format. Instead, I'll try to tell a story through three different projects.
But first, I'll show off the only lip-wrapped spun bowl I made all semester, on my first day.
*****
On my first class night, Our Instructor was there to mentor Joy!
Had time indeed been wound back? I could not wipe the stupid grin off my face. Neither could a lot of us old-timers.
Joy was going to give the beginners an introduction to hot glass. Our Instructor would see to the rest of us. "What would you like me to do?" he asked. "Should I do a demo?"
Low Key called out, "Yes! Do a demo!"
"Demo!" the rest of us chimed in.
So he did a demo: the dreaded one-gather-one-reheat exercise he used to make us do on our first day. The key to this is to get a big gather so that one has more time to work before the glass cools. For the life of me, as many times as he told us how to scoop a lot of glass onto the pipe, I have never been able to get more than a mid-sized glob.
I didn't keep my one-gather-one-reheat. There was enough crap on the shelves at home already.
CP asked me what I had in mind for the semester. "I dunno. Balloons maybe."
"I thought about making hot air balloons," he said, "but I never really figured it out."
The next day, I sketched it out on the back of an envelope. Really, I did.
*****
So, first project: hot air balloons.
Pick up a rod of color, or some frit. Gather over it. Blow a big bubble, but pull a small neck on it first. Put a hook on while the balloon is still on the pipe. Knock the balloon off the pipe. Sand the bottom smooth when it comes out of the annealer.
Well, okay. They were small and very heavy for their size, but it was a start.
The one-gather exercise came in handy for the baskets. I dipped the tops into red frit before I opened them up. It was messy-looking. Again, though, this was only a rough draft.
Next, I got out my hand-held drill (a Dremel tool), filled a balloon with water, and tried to drill some holes in the neck from the inside out. Drilling has to be done wet to keep the dust down and the glass from cracking, so filling the balloon with water was the easiest thing to do.
Three holes or four though? I didn't give much thought to which of the little baskets would go with which balloon. I made a mess of the yellow one on the way to getting four holes in it. I went with three holes for the red balloon. I drilled one basket with four holes and one with three.
During this process, I also learned that one can wear out a diamond-tip drill bit. These balloons were very thick.
I didn't like how stiff the copper wire looked.
I went with chain instead. I have a lot of chain from all the beadwork I used to do before I got bit by the glass bug.
The consensus from my online friends and All The Glass was that three chains were better than four. "Less drilling," he added. He was busy drilling holes in the middle of all of his poured flowers so that he could wire them to his fence.
The next hot air balloon I made was with Hyacinth frit. It was somewhat lighter and thinner.
I made two baskets for it. One was also Hyacinth. The colors didn't match, though, because the frit on the balloon was much more blown out.
The second basket was dipped in Hyacinth frit. It was a messier look, but I liked the final appearance better.
Sticking with frit, I played with Jewel Tone mix. One was over Enamel White, the other on top of a thin layer of Neo Lavender, which changes from blue to pink depending on the type of light it's under. The layer was too thin to notice, though.
At this point, friends were suggesting that the baskets were too big, or that they should hold tea lights. It's one or the other, people. If I'd gone for realism, I'd've had to use a thimble. When classmate Murano showed me photos of a hot air balloon festival and I counted over 16 ropes on one basket, my decision to stick with whimsy was cemented in.
While all this was going on, I started making simple balloons. The first ones, as you'll see later, were bad. I repurposed one into a hot air balloon by knocking off a terrible hook and sawing off the bottom. I drilled a hole in the top so that I could string it up with beads and wire.
I started to blow bigger and thinner. The hot air balloons got bigger and lighter.
For some social media reason, I put a moose in one of the baskets.
Hanging two balloons from a rejected bowl (more on these later) proved to be too craptastic to survive. Also, heavy.
All The Glass and I hauled out the threading apparatus one night. While the hot air balloons looked good at a distance, they were the size and weight of cannonballs. Fail.
So I tried again a week later. These were bigger and lighter.
I found a piece of Purple Lustre rod in my rod box. I used it for one more balloon. The purple reduced to a metallic bronze. All The Glass commented on its gargantuan size as he put it in the annealer. Ha. He couldn't make something this small if he tried.
I clearly blew this out off-center. The spiral at the top should be where the hook is.
The cannonballs found a home in the front yard.
*****
After helping All The Glass make giant flowers from his 12-ridged mold, I figured I'd give it a try. I used a smaller mold with eight rounded edges, meant for pumpkins, and cut between the ridges.
Jack said, "You made a splat!"
They were so much fun to make that I kept at it, adding a lip wrap to a couple of them. The wrap wound up on the underside of the edges. I decided not to pursue it.
I played with the amount of heat and time in the glory hole. Some splats came out flat. Some were bowls. Others were in between, which I think I like the best.
This one was irreparably off-center. I used it as a prototype for drilling holes to hang hot air balloons.
I tried the Opal Sky Blue one again, and also used a piece of Canary Yellow rod.
I had some Ultramarine rod in the box. This color always gave me trouble. Blowing thinner, I spun this one out and managed to screw it up. One of the sides collapsed back on itself.
I put it in the front yard, folded side down.
I decided to try again. Once more, I'd blown thin. When I was ready to bring it out of the glory hole, spinning fast as the fingers spread, I called out "Doors!" to All The Glass, as I always did. He slid the doors outwards. At this instant, a chunk of the inner door fell onto my splat, knocking some edges in and throwing the whole piece into chaos.
I embraced the anarchy, as the erstwhile Alchemy used to say. All The Glass loved it and told me I'd have to bring this to our final critique. It's not coming to the critique. I'm not sure what I'll do with it.
So I tried a third time, leaving some clear glass from the collar on the fingers. I messed up one cut and the pieces merged. Another fail.
I thought this might be a natural hole for hanging, but the splat doesn't look good hanging from that side.
I put it in the yard too, mistake-side down.
As my learning curve goes, I figure out a method, I make some good pieces, and then I start to mess up. Certain I was on the downslope, I tried again with a piece of Poppy Red rod. This one worked, sort of. It would have been better if I'd gotten it hot enough to go flatter.
I made one with Fluoro Green and Glow Green Powder.
It glows in the dark.
My cuts were jagged. I had to sand the edges smooth.
I was definitely on the downslope. The next one I tried, with yellow frit, was passable. The last piece of Ultramarine rod splat came out even worse than the previous one.
I made a few more. One was with Gold Aventurine frit. The color wasn't dense enough. The sparkle was barely noticeable. I drilled a hole in one of the edges so that it could be hung up.
Silver Clear is supposed to reduce. It didn't. At best, there's a brownish tint to the clear glass. I drilled a hanging hole in this one too.
The last one I made was with a piece of Citron rod. I drilled this one as well.
*****
With the metal rolling door all the way open and the doorway facing east, we got to see the moon rise while we blew glass.
*****
Murano started filling the empty Wednesday slot on a regular basis. On Thursdays, I'd give him a hand when it was his turn to work.
Murano is meticulous. He won't accept anything less than near perfection in his work. It took more than a few tries, but he trained me how to bring him a bubble for a blown foot. I assisted him as he made goblets.
Fucking goblets.
All the Saturday morning people, the hotshots -- LT2, Tall Vase, Pumpkin Master, and New Grace -- were making them. They all knew how. They could all help each other.
Did I want to make goblets? About as much as I wanted to climb steep hills last spring. As I watched Murano work, I knew that he would have to be the one to teach me. Eventually. Someday.
*****
In the first few weeks of class, I made flowers as a warmup exercise. I shoved the ones I kept into a corner of the front yard. Every few weeks I'd rearrange them until I forgot all about them.
*****
I'd been thinking that the transition from hot air balloons to plain old balloons wouldn't be too much of a stretch. Joy gave me a hint for how to make the opening look like the knotted end. I messed around with blowing and pulling until I got the shape I was after.
The very first one that worked (the tiny clear one on the top left below) was thin and light. The rest, not so much. Still, they looked like balloons. It was a start.
When I retrieved them from the cabinet, I was disappointed in how heavy they were. They looked half-inflated. I needed to work thinner.
So I did. I blew them so thin that sometimes they started to collapse before I was finished. I blew them so thin that I started to ask All The Glass for a little hot bit to put up top where the hook would go, in order to keep the top from breaking when I knocked the balloon off the punty.
Sometimes that wasn't enough. Sometimes, my too-thin balloons popped.
I gave a couple of the heavy reject balloons to Jumping Bean and tossed another. I repurposed the red one into a hot air balloon by cutting off the bottom and knocking off the terribly-shaped hook.
The first balloons were made from two gathers of glass. They were as big, or bigger, than the hot air balloons.
I decided to try making balloons from one gather of glass, the way I would for ornaments. It would be good practice for using less glass, working hotter, and working thinner. The first few I made this way were a mixed bag. Some were small and heavy. Others were the right size and shape.
One that collapsed on me towards the end I decided to keep anyway and name "After the Party."
I used the previously-drilled, off-center splat as a base to hang some of the two-gather balloons.
After adjusting the chain lengths and rearranging the balloons, I thought it looked better.
I started cranking out one-gather balloons. They'd make good presents and I could sell the less worthy ones for charity.
The holding shelf was filling up. I put copper wire hooks on the thick glass hooks in order to make them easier to hang.
I selected four one-gather balloons and hung them from one of the semi-failed splats. I shortened the chains a little after I took this picture.
Somewhere in here, I finally mastered Our Instructor's big-gather technique. I made a one-gather balloon that was nearly as big as my 2-gather balloons. I took it to work.
These are the last two balloons I made before I began a rapid slide down the bad end of the learning curve.
*****
I showed a picture of the balloons to a colleague, who sent me a photo and said, "They remind me of these Turkish glass pomegranates that are very popular back home."
Could I make a pomegranate? It wouldn't be much of a stretch from balloons, would it?
So I tried, with help from Murano and Joy.
The first one's bottom broke out when I knocked it off the punty, but I put it in the annealer anyway. I wasn't sure what the color would be when it cooled because I'd layered two different reds.
I saved the second one too, but I discarded it later. The shape was all wrong.
These got tossed.
For a handful of weeks, I'd try a couple, changing the way I'd make the top, until I got something that was close to what I'd seen in the produce aisle. Some were so bad that I didn't even take them home.
I ended this learning curve at the top. I got a couple of good ones and stopped. I gave one to my colleague as a surprise. I saved three more and chucked the rest. The one with the broken bottom is in my office window.
*****
On Halloween night, we entered the classroom to find that all of our wooden and metal tools had been replaced by hollowed-out squash and giant carrots.
Joy and LT2 went first, to demonstrate how one would need to get creative.
They made it look easy. It wasn't. My first attempt fell on the floor, because I'm guaranteed to screw up on a class night.
I waited around to go again. With help from Murano, I made a one-gather almost-pitcher.
Using real tools, I helped Murano make another blown-foot goblet, and then I worked on a couple of pomegranates. We left the classroom at 10:30. It wasn't the first time.
*****
Blown feet. Goblets. I did not have this on my glassblowing bingo card.
In addition to Murano jumping into our vacant evening spot a lot, I'd slid into a few of his Saturday afternoons. He was teaching me how to bring him a bubble for blown feet, and how to be his assistant in general. It was quite a change from working with All The Glass, where brute strength and approximation ruled the day. With Murano, everything was delicate and precise. In training me, he corrected a suite of bad habits I'd picked up over the years. Where "close enough" is good enough for me, it wasn't for him. If a goblet came out of the annealer at a slight angle, he'd cut the offending part off and stick the rest in the big oven to be reattached.
Eventually, I asked him if we could turn the tables and let me have a crack at this blown foot business.
Watching and helping him was one thing. Actually doing it was quite another. I was just happy that the pieces I managed to bring all the way to the annealer stood upright.
On a class night, with the Saturday goblet-hotshots watching, I tried another one. The foot was better at least.
One Saturday, when I was somewhat shorted on time and left with 45 minutes and a lot of stress, I wrangled a pulled stem with a blown foot. As is my custom when I'm anxious, my pieces get small. This here proto-goblet stands less than six inches tall.
I'm sure Murano didn't think much of it. But I took a view from Parliament's "Mothership Connection:"
Put a glide in your stride and a dip in your hip
And come on up to the Mothership
I drove home in a bad mood. I didn't want glassblowing to become a source of stress. On the other hand, this was my only chance to learn how to make a goblet. The Saturday morning hotshots worked with the Saturday morning hotshots. Of the rest of us, only Murano knew how to do these things, and I was the one he'd trained the most to help him.
So, a week later, I came back to try again. I messed up a couple of times. It took some screwups for me to have an aha moment. I made a full-size goblet with a pulled stem and a blown foot.
"We have to learn to blow thinner," Murano said of his work and mine. But this was good enough for me, because I wasn't sure I wanted to do it again. In any case, the semester was close to over. There would be no more opportunities anyway.
*****
Unless...
It was Thanksgiving week. The whispers about a spring workshop turned into advance notice when I emailed the proper department. I texted their response to everyone. Within days, a bunch of us had already called and reserved our spots.
Monday night was nailed down: Rose, Sage, me, and GGP. I could muck about for 13 weeks, stress-free.
Last year, I took two sessions. For me, the price for two is the same as tuition for a semester, but with twice as much bench time. I hadn't been planning to sacrifice 13 Sundays again, but in the next year there would be no impossibly hilly bike event looming.
CP was in the classroom with me and Murano the day I made the big goblet. Unable to get out of work in time for Monday evenings, both CP and Murano were considering Sunday mornings. I enjoyed working with CP last spring. I mused out loud about buying a Sunday slot if CP and Murano did. Murano said, "If you don't push yourself, you won't improve."
Ugh. Right. Sunday the meat and vegetables, Monday the dessert.
At home, I checked the registration site on a whim and found that hit had gone live. As soon as I saw it, I texted the class. I told Murano I'd think about Sundays. I spent the next hour or so paying bills online and helping folks navigate the registration form. At the end of the hour, bills were paid and I was set to sacrifice another 13 Sundays to the glass gods.
Unlike last year, when the schedule took a month to half-fill, three of the five 4-person sessions were filled within a week. Before the semester offiically ended, four of the five were taken.
*****
Finished with hot air balloons, balloons, splats, and goblets, I turned to farting around, a thing I hadn't done since the first day.
I found a little, funky-ridged mold hiding under the marver table. I pulled out some seldom-used frit and let whatever wanted to happen go ahead and happen. A little bowl happened.
In my office, I accidentally nudged the neo lavender mug from last spring's workshop that I'd been drinking out of every day. It shattered when it hit the floor. With Murano's help, I made another one with a slightly better handle.
Messing with the square mold again, I was rushing around on a class night, and, in front of the hotshots, nearly lost, then rescued, more neo lavender. It was tall and heavy. "Want a handle for that?" Murano asked. "Nah. Too big." I wasn't fond of it when it was finished, and contemplated slicing it up to be resused in the spring. I gave it away on Thanksgiving instead, which was easier.
A friend I hadn't seen for years came over and admired a bowl that I wasn't willing to part with. "I'll make you one," I told her.
So I did, messing up the first time. I'd meant to spin out a straight bowl but it got away from me. I ended up flopping it badly. I made another one, working it straight at the bench this time. I sent her pictures of both in the annealer. She liked the screwup better.
I put the most recent Ultramarine splat failure into the big oven and used it as an overlay before going into the square mold. When it came out of the annealer, Low Key thought it was hers and took it home. When she brought it back, I cut the top off and polished it.
All The Glass and I decided to use our scrap threads one night. With so many random colors, I find the pieces I make with scraps difficult to control. I tried a balloon, but it popped. I went the safe route next by using the square mold.
It wintered. On a towpath bike ride between Lambertville and Frenchtown, I saw the Delaware River shining blue-silver under a clear sky and flanked by brown trees. I needed to capture this in glass. There was one lab left. Knowing I could refine the idea next semester took the pressure off. I made a straight vessel first, and then a long-neck vase, both heavy, but I'd worry about that later.
The cobalt blue reduced to silver so well that taking pictures of the vase proved difficult.
Now I had a project for the workshop: refining the color pattern to capture what I saw on the towpath.
All The Glass again declared that this would be his last semester. "Right," I chided. "That's what you said last year."
Last December, he sold a lot of his color to All In. This time, he offered to sell his bubble mold to me or Joy for half of what it costs new. I said I'd take it. I'd never have bought one otherwise. I played with it, using some Wine Red powder that Joy had left out for all of us to try. I flubbed the first attempt and dumped it. The second one wound up as a thick drinking glass with bubbles only on the top.
The third try, on the last night of class, went better, in that I cut off all the bubble-free parts before I blew it out. But the piece was far too big and heavy. All The Glass sent me a picture of an intricate, multi-colored bowl he'd made with the mold years ago. Now I had another workshop project: master the bubble mold.
*****
Joy had something planned for our final night. They heaped glass onto a pipe, blew a long, giant bubble, and opened the far end. We took glass rods they'd made earlier and used them to skewer marshmallows. There were graham crackers and chocolate bars on the back table.
*****
I sold some second-tier balloons to my colleagues for charity. I mailed off and gave away some of the better ones, as well as a few splats and a couple of hot air balloons. I gave the first river vessel to a friend who I knew would get what I was trying to do. I tossed the early goblets into the re-melt bucket. I moved some older pieces off the display shelves to the not-yet-on-Etsy holding area. Some two-gather balloons found homes on walls. The balloon-turned-hot air balloon nudged an older ornament out of a prime window spot. I set up a new box and labeled it "rejects/for student sale."
I boxed up the craptastic balloon-splat mess, the big goblet, and the biggest hot air balloon to bring to the final critique.
This was the most laid-back crit ever. All The Glass, serious about never returning, loaded up two tables in the back classroom with bottles and boxes of frit and powder and sheets of glass and cane and fused cane and blowpipes. One table was the sale table, where glass was priced per pound. The other table was for freebies.
He kept coming in with more boxes. "How big is your basement?" I asked.
It's not like I need more color, but I chose a few bottles of frit and some chunks of rod to pay for. I snagged a couple of boxes of free thick shards and scrap stringers. It felt like a bead show and a flea market. Joy gave us the first half hour to dig through what All The Glass was trying to get rid of. By the time we were getting started with the crit, the supply had been well picked-through. Too bad I didn't take any "before" pictures.
All The Glass unfolded a panoramic photo of the hundreds of flowers he'd put on his 50-foot span of garden fence. CP had gotten close to his goal of large, symmetrically-flopped bowls. Murano had a spread of perfection, of course. The beginners did far better than I ever did. Low Key and GGP displayed some free-form fooling around. Tall Vase showed tall things. LT2 had shapes that nobody else can make.
I showed my craptastic one-gather balloon splat that I'd hung safely out of the way on the coat rack until it was time to talk about it. People had come by to see it before class.
They seemed to like the bronze-feathered hot air balloon. I showed the giant bubble vase because I'd just picked it up from the holding cabinet in the hallway. And then I talked about the goblet and how stressful it was, crediting Murano for all his guidance.
I said, "I want to get better, but I also want to fart around." Joy and Murano said that learning the fine techniques for goblets will help when I mess about. "You'll get where you want to be faster," they both said.
"Right," I replied. "Better goblets, better farts."
As I was packing up, All The Glass put a box on the table next to me. It contained bottles of frit of varying size and color. He didn't want to cart all this stuff back home. I went over to the freebie table and took some fused glass he'd made years ago. He told me to take some fused glass from the sale table too. I chose a long piece of cane that was twisted red, not to use, but to display. The bag I'd brought in to hold what I'd planned to buy was now overflowing and overweight. Somehow I got it all to the car in one trip.
When I got home, I put the goblet away and hung the hot air balloon. The splat balloons will have to wait. I need to put a plant hanger in a wall stud somewhere that will catch the morning light.
So that's that until February.
*****
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