27 November 2018
11/6/18
It's almost chilly in here today.
All right, let's take a look at what came out of the annealer from that extra Saturday studio session.
Gah. Well, I sure can make crooked handles.
Part of the wrap fell off. I guess I can glue it back on. We're probably not supposed to do that.
(Fixed it.
)My lab partner today is someone I haven't worked with before. Turns out he's my classmate's lab partner. He's fun to work with. He encourages me to use his colors for my wraps. How can I say no to that? I'm messing up the handles again though. There's either too much glass or not enough, and I can't seem to land the handle top in line with the bottom. "Handles are hard," I hear several more times.
11/7/18
Oof. Massive handle fail confirmed.
It's guest night in the studio. There are rows of chairs set up behind the work bench. I recognize a handful of the advanced students. I sit near the woman from the gym.
"Did you register for the advanced class?" she asks me.
"Yeah."
"Good!"
One of my regular lab partners sits next to me on the other side. To her left is another student I worked with on one of the early, hot days. "I've gotten better," I tell her.
"Did you register for the advanced class?"
"Yeah."
"Good!"
"Where do you get your colored glass?"
"Olympic," they reply.
When the demo begins -- our instructor has brought in an artist from Harrisburg -- the chatter in the seats doesn't stop. The two advanced students from Monday night are assisting the guest. So is one of the studio managers, and, of course, our instructor.
The guest makes one piece and then we go into the sculpture classroom for food. People gather in small groups. I try to be social. I feel on the edge of it all. I'm comparing this to a Princeton Free Wheeler party and that's not fair. I hang out with the Monday guys and later drift over to my classmate and his lab partner. I ask about color again and get the same answer: "Olympic."
The guest artist makes another piece, more complicated this time. We applaud and then go home.
I set my messed-up mugs on the kitchen counter, trying to get pictures of them from their good sides. Despite the color, all of these pieces are going in the reject pile.
Except maybe this one, for now.
Maybe I'll hang onto this one too, until I can make something better.
I haven't blown glass for a whole week. I wonder how much I forgot.
There's a notice on the blackboard about conserving glass. If our instructor would let us throw stuff out I could replenish the clear glass supply all by myself.
The student who was supposed to be my partner today had an emergency and won't be here. I'm left with pulling in the assistant who floats around the building (he's a master at handles) and asking the other two advanced students to help me when they can. When there's nobody around I practice bench blowing and shaping without a partner.
With everybody's help I manage to get four pieces into the annealer.
I'm still having trouble making a straight vessel. There's still some time at the end of the night, not enough to make another cup, but enough for me to muck about attempting to make a bird the way my sometimes lab partner does. She makes it look easy. I need more practice working as hot as she does; I can't shape the beak and tail in time before the piece cools off. I manage to get a lopsided bird into the annealer.
On a cabinet door is a diagram of a Klein bottle, a topological feature with no inside.
11/14/18
Monday's productivity makes up for my complete failure tonight. Our instructor looks my work from Monday and says, "You're too scientific." He wants me to make objects of art, not objects for a cupboard. I'm at a loss. I can't even make a straight-sided vessel. What if I want to make cups and mugs with funky colored wraps?
Rather than beat myself up at the furnace I set about grinding off the uneven bottoms of Monday's pieces using the disc sander he's shown us tonight.
When it's my turn at the furnace again I opt out of vessels and try again for a bird. To do this right requires working hotter than I'm used to, which is a good exercise. I'm having trouble controlling the glass, and when I finally get it back to the bench it's too cold to pull a beak and a tail. "I don't know how she does this!" I'm laughing. "She works with a lot less glass than you do," our instructor says. I didn't think that was possible. My two attempts wind up in the re-melting bucket.
I go back to my pieces to take pictures.
Monday's sorry-ass bird doesn't stand on its own until I grind its tail clean off.
I was trying for straight edges when this cup fell off the punty, which I'd let get too cold. I like the shape though.
The shape of this mug got away from me so I wrapped it and put a handle on it. I didn't like the handle either, so I wrapped the whole thing and called it art. Of everything I'd done on Monday this was the closest to art. It's going in the discard pile though; it's chipped and cracked.
Keep, for now.
Toss.
As I'm taking pictures our instructor says, "Think of what other animal you could make."
"A cat." I'd had the idea weeks ago but had forgotten about it.
11/19/18
We don't have class the day before Thanksgiving so I asked if there was any free studio time during the week. I got Tuesday evening.
My Monday partner is the one I've worked with the most, the one who makes the little birds.
When he's not at the furnace, one of the advanced students is assiduously picking through the color discard pile and pulling out clear glass shards for recycling.
"I have this idea," I tell my lab partner, and draw a cat in chalk on the floor.
My lab partner holds the propane torch against the head as I try to pull the ears. They're small and far apart, giving the cat an owl-like look. I pull a little for the nose. Then we work on the tail. I get a good wrap going, and I'm happy with it until I realized I've just covered up half of the bottom jack line. How are we going to break this thing off the pipe? We struggle with that until one of the advanced students comes over and works his magic.
"Wanna get a picture?" he asks. He figures the tail will break when he frees the cat from the pipe. Something reflects under the ears, giving the cat eyes that aren't really there.
Here's the tail, which might or might not survive.
He frees it from the pipe, tail intact. Fist bumps all around. I made a cat!
The second one goes a little better until I pull the tail as if I'm making a handle rather than a wrap. It's a mess. I'm going to throw it out. "Put it away! Put it away!" my lab partner insists. "You can throw it out later."
She says she has an idea for shaping the head by sculpting it, and she tries with a small piece of glass. She does it perfectly and pulls two little ears in exactly the right place. She wasn't planning to keep it but I insist on bringing her a bit for the tail.
When it's my turn again I try pulling the glass to shape the face. I pull too hard; a long string of glass follows my hand and pulls the entire piece forward. "It's a bird!" I exclaim. "I'm gonna flip it over and make the tail." So now I have an accidental bird in the annealer too.
My lab partner makes another couple of cats in her style, which, like her birds, is with a small, solid piece of glass, and, of course, perfect.
11/20/18
I want to make more cats today, but first I need to practice making a straight vessel. Fortunately my lab partner today is the same one who let me play with color before. He's got good control. He's also already been here for four hours and chose to stay when the regular guy couldn't make it. He starts off with a vessel, too, and I watch intently. The one I make is better than before but still not perfectly even.
My lab partner is making a vase with a pulled neck. He asks me to bring him a colored thread, which is fun to make.
The advanced students in the studio with us are the ones I worked with my first studio night. One is busy cranking out ornaments. The other is working with more glass than I've seen anyone else in the studio use so far. We try to stay out of his way.
The ornament student asks me to pull on a punty rod loaded with colored glass. We move away from each other as he pulls the end into a long, thin thread, then breaks it off. The thread falls to the floor in a thin, stiff, straight line. "You can keep that," he says. He wasn't trying to make anything; he was getting the extra glass off the rod. When it cools I pick up the strand and break it into smaller pieces for us to use later.
Meanwhile I'm making another cat from clear glass. Taking a cue from yesterday's lab partner I attempt to sculpt the face while today's partner holds a propane torch to keep the glass warm. The result is abstract but better than nothing.
My lab partner tries another vase. As I'm gathering glass for another thread he calls out to stop; he'd pulled to hard on the mouth of the vase and it fell from the punty. Rather than try again he says I can take a turn.
I lay the glass rods on the marver in a horizontal pattern. I'm going to try to make a tabby cat. This is easier said than done because my hot gather isn't picking up the cold rods. My partner comes over to help me manage the heat better, and we eventually get all the rods on the gather. At this point I decide that I'm going to make a vessel instead of a cat.
Warming it in the glory hole I let it get too hot. When I bring it out the piece stretches and flops into a long tube. We rush to the bench to save it, my lab partner propping it up with paper until I can take over. Now it looks more like a long, skinny, twisted vase.
The advanced student who works with large amounts of glass and is fond of molded feet for his bowls comes over and suggests a foot. "It's not gonna stand otherwise," he says. So, while my partner gathers glass for a foot I reheat the tube and get a jack line in below where the worst twist is. Now the piece will be tiny but it'll be straight.
I place the piece onto the pool of glass on the marver while turning the pipe (our instructor showed me how to do this during the class that turned out to be a private lesson). I heat it and bring it back to the bench to get the edges round. The advanced student jumps in with a paddle and shows me how to hold the jacks at a slant near the base to keep the foot even.
I put the piece on a punty and we break it off at the jack line. It comes apart on a slant. I decide not to try to even it out. Instead I smooth the edges at an angle.
"Hey, can you bring me a yellow thread?" I ask my partner. When in doubt, wrap it up!
Well, one of the requirements of this course is to be able to use "applied techniques." I think I've nailed that here.
How many glassblowers does it take to rescue a piece? How many ya got?
Here it is in the annealer.
There's time for one more cat. My partner says it would look better in color. He has a mix laid out. "I'll make a calico," I tell him, and set about mushing the gather in multicolored frit. "I'm making a mess," I confess as frit spills from the tray to the marver. "That's okay. You're supposed to."
Our instructor has warned me that, when working with color, one can't see the bubble. For what I'm doing it doesn't much matter. We sculpt the face and ears as before.
It's getting on to 9:00 p.m. The other guys have put away their colors, and my partner has put away his, too. Now there are only small piles of spilled frit on the marver. "Can you bring me a gather for the tail?" I ask. "You can just roll it in the spilled frit." So he does. That's one way to clean up after a long day.
While he's doing that I reheat the cat and take it to the bench for some adjustments. The guy with purple hair appears in the doorway. I've seen him a few times before. I don't know if he's a glassblower or a sculptor, but he's dropped by a few times. I don't know his name.
He looks over at my cat and mouths, "Oooo!"
That's the best compliment I've received from anyone all semester.
We get the tail on and put it away.
Here it is in the annealer.
At home I sort through the piles of cups and bowls again, pulling a few out to bring back to the studio so that I can smooth out the bottoms enough for them to stand without wobbling.
The discard pile, full of misshapen bowls, cracked bottoms, sharp wraps that cut me twice, grows.
There are three boxes now: discards, finished keepers, and keepers to be finished.
On a whim I search for videos of glassblown cats. I find one of an artist who makes a standing cat with its tail up, out of a solid piece of glass. It's too advanced for me now, but in watching him make the head I learn that I wasn't far off when I accidentally turned a face into a beak. The trick is to get it warm again and cut it off at the base. Maybe I'll try that on Monday.
11/26/18
It's 69 degrees next to the furnace, but in the back of the hot shop, where the steel door is fully open, it's cold enough that I put my heat-resistant sleeves on for warmth.
My lab partner tonight is someone I worked with a couple of times before. He has a tube so he can put air in his own pieces. He's working a double shift today, having been here for four hours already. He's in the middle of a piece when I arrive, so I set about using the wet sander to grind down a handful of pieces.
It takes me a good 20 minutes to grind down the accidental bird to the point where it stands on its own.
I keep three of last week's cats. The fourth's face is such a mess that I toss it in the recycling bucket. I'm not sure what to do about the one with the messed-up tail. That's the one that my lab partner insisted I anneal instead of tossing. I'm glad I listened to her. The little purple cat, whose face is also messed up, is my favorite.
Then there's the rescue piece. If we hadn't had such a good time making it I'd toss it.
I guess my skills are improving on making straight cups. Despite grinding down the tilting mug, it's never going to stand straight. I'll keep it for now, but yeesh. The smaller one is probably a goner. The middle one is okay, save for a large bubble in the glass. I pack them all up to take home.
I like this one. The wrap is a little loose, though, so it'll be a display piece rather than something to drink from.
Next I find the hot glue gun. I want to cover the wrap on the massive wrapped mug and sand-blast it.
The hot glue is too hot for the wrap, which cracks as I cover it. Pieces of the wrap fall off, leaving sharp edges and an ugly mess behind. I pull off the glue and drop the piece into the recycling bucket. So much for that.
I dig out an early bowl, one that I brought to practice sand-blasting on. I try to draw a regular pattern but the glue is too soft and sloppy for that. I make a random pattern instead and sand-blast it. "This is way too much fun," I tell the studio technician on duty when I return to the hot shop.
11/27/18
I've been thinking about this all day. I've got a roll of square stickers, masking tape, and a sheet of little dots. After dinner I hole up with an early hamster bowl, a wrapped bowl, the accidental bird, and the cat with the messed-up tail.
First the hamster bowl, which I'm going to give to one of the Hill Slugs, who requested a tea light.
Next, the cat, which I'm going to turn into a tabby. I break off the skinny part of the tail; it's loose and sharp anyway. I file the end down. Then I sit next to Mojo, whom I use as a model as I cut strips of masking tape.
Compared to the cat the bowl is easy.
I dig into the reject box and pull out the too-small mug with an even too-smaller handle. For this I get random.
The accidental bird turns into a penguin when I slap on masking tape wings and sticker dot eyes.
I text the Wednesday shop technician to find out if I can arrive early and use the sand-blaster before class. She says I can.
11/28/18
I have a heavy load to carry from my car to the studio tonight. In one box is everything I want to sand-blast or grind down. In a bigger box is everything I want to throw away.
Our instructor grudgingly lets me dump the contents of the reject box. It makes quite the clatter and fills the can halfway. He pulls out a lopsided bowl. "I still have bad stuff at home," I assure him.
The studio is warmer today; the rear door is nearly closed. Cold air hangs at our feet, chilling them.
I get most of the way through sand-blasting before the gun stops working and class begins.
Today was supposed to be a critique day. Both of us had completely forgotten about it. Lucky for me I have three cats sitting on the table and a handful of sand-blasted things in a box. My classmate has a little vase. We skip the critique.
Our instructor tells us that tonight is for experimentation. He wants to show us a couple of demos first. Although my classmate and I are in awe of the shapes he's producing, our instructor tosses everything.
It's my turn fist tonight, so I ask for help making a lily-pad foot on a bowl. I'm cracking up as I fumble with the pick, pulling so hard on the glass that I nearly stab myself when it resists and my hand goes flying. The bowl is a little off-center. I just can't get this right. I put it away, disappointed.
Next I want to try making a mouse. I draw the plan in chalk on the floor. My first attempt goes awry when my classmate blows into the pipe without my asking. I start over. He helps with the ears. I want to cover the pipe break-off point with a tail, so we stuff the mouse into the ornament holder at the break-off table and our instructor brings a molten bit for the tail. Stupid me, I've forgotten which side is the front and I don't know which way to bend the tail. Our instructor makes a random squiggle with the glass and we put it away. Eh, it's a prototype.
When my classmate takes his turn he makes a perfectly-shaped goblet from a mold, pulling a perfect stem, and putting a molded bottom on it. I'm watching from the grinding wheel. I should just stay here after that.
When it's my turn again I want to work with the mold. I'm clueless. My first attempt goes horribly wrong early on when we can't manage the air. I go again, teaching him how to blow gently. The bowl develops a crack when we transfer it to the punty. The crack doesn't heal, and a piece falls off in the glory hole. I chuck it.
I'm done for the night. I ask if I can go back to the sand blaster instead. When I come back my classmate has made a beautiful, even, molded drinking glass.
All I have to show for myself is a load of sand-blasted glass. I'm happy with it, but at the same time I feel like a failure because I'm certain that I can't work with molds or pull a stem the way my classmate can. On the other hand, he has yet to try what I've tried. Why am I comparing myself to him? Why am I competing? I'm not going to make a career of this. I'm here to have fun.
My classmate likes the tabby. He looks at his vase. "Try sand-blasting it," I suggest. "It's a lot of fun." He thinks he might.
I should be going to sleep now but before I do I want to assess what I've done over the past few weeks. I put my favorites in a line.
But I can't stop thinking that I need to make a pulled-stem, molded-foot, molded goblet because that's what my classmate did.
11/29/18
I should be in bed but I want to assess my progress this semester. I pull all the keepers out and group them.
I'll keep all the wrapped thingies.
The lopsided mug and the most uneven cups go into the reject box.
I'll keep whatever this is.
12/1/18
Two days ago I had an idea and ordered a bunch of battery-powered LEDs.
Of all the cats with open bottoms only two have holes wide enough for a light. I need to use Blu-Tack to set the light straight; it has a loop on the end.
Ta-da! Multimedia!
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