2/23/19: A Bucket Full of Dead Horses
I've slid into another open Saturday morning slot. Tall Vase and Sleepless decide that our class project should be a flower in a vase like the one they did last year. That one is sitting on top of the annealing oven, the flower, broken off, stuck in the vase full of sand.) Tall Vase draws it on the chalkboard.
Grace and Sleepless get to work on the vase. I want to make the flower but I don't know how. Tall Vase makes a quick one in clear glass then lays out some of his color for me. He guides me through every step. We put it in the oven because the vase isn't ready.
"Wanna make another one?" he asks. Of course I do! I lay out fuchsia and dark violet from my collection. We'll use his green again for the leaves. We finish it in time to run it to the vase.
The vase Sleepless has made is perfect until the bottom cracks off with the punty when we put it away.
Sleepless curses. "Keep it!" I command. We'll grind it down or something so that it'll stand on its own.
Sleepless and I spend the rest of the class time helping each other. Grace is working on horses again, sculpting the glass from a large gather on a punty rod. Over and over she tries, getting closer and closer to the whole animal before the glass cools and she carries the piece to the pipe bucket.
I'm having trouble finding a punty rod that isn't attached to a horse carcass.
Sleepless needs punty rods. She's working on goblets, which, according to LT1, "are not for the faint of heart." The stem is the tricky part. We try several approaches. I make the unforgivable error of being away from the bench once when she needs my help. For that I make sure she gets another chance, and this time, on her fourth try, she's figured out how to do it.
I'm still trying to make a funnel-shaped vessel. I'm also playing with color. I found some red chunks in the scrap pile (I was smashing it with a mallet when Sleepless needed me). I also want another go at the reactive mix, this time with iris gold in the background. I try the funnel twice. I can get the shape well enough but the bottom is all wonky. I can't figure out why that's happening. It didn't happen last week.
Grace gets a horse she's happy with and puts it in the oven.
I make a pumpkin bowl with more iris gold and reactive mix.
At 12:30 Glass Ninja comes in. He has an idea for our project on Monday. He draws it in chalk on the floor.
2/25/19: Night of Exploding Glass
Two things: One, I've got to figure out what's going on with the bases of my funnels; and two, I'm really not fond of iris gold. It's muddy. On the other hand, with a little more practice this twisty thing I tried could work well.
Iris gold around the core bubble and reactive mix on the outside helped spread the iris gold thinner, but I still don't like it.
It's definitely less muddy this way. Maybe I should try again and spread the glass thinner.
As for the scrap red, there's too much white mixed in. It makes the clear glass look dirty. And the bottom is a mess.
At least I can make round openings now.
Last week's plates are so flat that they've gone beyond flat to drooping past the punty. I lay them upside-down at first until I figure out where the real bottom is.
But the flowers though!
If I hold onto the vase our class project looks good.
On Thursday I'm going to ask Tall Vase to walk me through another flower.
Nope. Even a flower can't save this muddy piece of bottom-wonk:
Once again Prodigy's assigned partner is MIA. I text LT1. The kid's gotta be booted at this point.
The three of us get to work on Glass Ninja's class project plan: a dragon bowl. Clearly this is him wanting our help on a difficult piece. We're glad to oblige. He has a piece from last year that he wants to improve upon. It's a large, floppy bowl with three dragons twisting up from the base. This year's bowl will be reduced gold on the inside, red on the outside, and have green dragons with black eyes and gold wings.
It takes a while to set up because it requires one rod laid over another before the core bubble happens. Prodigy gets in some vessel practice while I help Glass Ninja. As he layers on clear glass and we enlarge the bubble, the piece gets so big that, while I can lift it, I'm unsteady at maneuvering it into the glory hole. I bump it on the side of the door twice. We cover the mark with a dragon -- a large bit of glass dipped in green frit and stuck into a mold before being laid onto the vase and twisted up the side.
Glass Ninja puts four dragons on, with me sitting at the bench with the propane torch, helping to shape the dragons' heads and keep the punty hot while he puts on the wings from bits that Prodigy brings him.
After the fourth dragon, Glass Ninja carries the piece to the glory hole. We're finished the difficult part. Now we need to transfer it to a punty and put a lip wrap onto it before Glass Ninja opens it up.
Bang!
The piece explodes inside the glory hole.
Glass Ninja curses and begins furiously to scrape out the scraps.
"It got too cold," he says in frustration.
It takes me and Prodigy a few minutes to convince him we should try again. This time we reverse colors, making red dragons on a green background. LT2 comes in at the right time. He takes over carrying the piece to and from the glory hole, freeing me up to help Prodigy make the bits for the dragons and wings. With four of us working we're much faster, and with only three dragons this time we get the bowl into the glory hole and onto the punty in good time. I bring red for the lip wrap. Glass Ninja opens the bowl with me working the glory hole doors. Prodigy is ready with the big propane torch to reduce the inside while I run around them to put on the heat-protective helmet and gloves for the break-off. We get it into the oven and heave a collective sigh of relief.
I want to make more funnels to figure out where I'm going wrong. It's in the swing, I figure out, as I puff and swing and have to puff again to keep the bottom from collapsing in on itself. I'm being too rough with the swing. It should be more gentle and natural. After all that reshaping, the piece is large and thin. I really like the shape. I'm hopeful. I stand to give it one more heat for some final re-shaping, and that's when the back of the punty rod hits the bench.
Rookie mistake.
The vibration knocks the piece off the punty and it shatters on the floor. From where I'm standing it looks like a mid-air explosion.
After I clean up my mess I try again. This time I hold the bubble at an angle instead of swinging and the bottom stays round. At the final opening I go too fast, extending it beyond where I wanted it. "You went too fast," Glass Ninja says, "You'll never get it back." I put it away, a larger version of the flawed capri blue bowl I made a few weeks ago.
Right. Time to calm down with a cat. I roll the glass in brilliant yellow and then in leftover red scraps. I work slowly by myself while Glass Ninja helps Prodigy with a lesson on the proper formation of punties.
I slowly shape the body, blowing the bubble a little at a time, reheating between each step. I'm at the glory hole when I hear the unmistakable "bonk bonk bonk" of a hot glass sphere falling off a punty. Glass Ninja does the quick punty rescue routine (I remember it well from last semester). I return to the bench for more shaping, then go back to the glory hole.
Bonk bonk bonk.
"C'mon! Really?" Glass Ninja asks Prodigy's piece. He picks it up again and this time they manage the transfer only to find a crack in the vessel.
He helps me with some final air for the cat. I get the head hot enough to pull ears while he carefully finds the last of the red chunks for the tail. When that goes on he asks if I want to make the eyes. I'm not ready for that yet so he does it, covering a tweezer flaw in the process.
We clean up for the night. In the waste bucket, mixed in with dead leaves and dirt, are bits of dragons and the remnants of a capri blue vessel.
2/28/19: How Many Glassblowers Does It Take to Help Me Make a Flower?
Dragons!
The cat's eyes are bi-colored. I didn't know that when they happened.
I don't like how the blue vessel came out. The shape is wrong and I didn't put enough color on it.
But it's round at the top. That's something.
Our instructor is demonstrating how to use a color rod. I take copious notes while he makes a perfect, lip-wrapped, floppy bowl.
I'm fifth on the bench sign-up list, which leaves me to mill about, give occasional air, and help put pieces in the oven.
Alchemy is hanging around. I tell him that I'm not liking iris gold one bit. He agrees. Our instructor agrees. "It's a tough color," he says. "Too much looks muddy. Not enough disappears. If you get it just right, though, it's gorgeous."
With Prodigy's assigned partner a no-show in class yesterday, the ghost has been officially booted. Now there's a Monday night opening. I wheedle Alchemy into taking it next week. We'll play with color; that's his thing.
While Glass Ninja and Tall Vase finish up a big piece I play at the other bench on making a mouse from clear glass. I'm under no pressure and nobody is watching. I take my time in figuring out how to shape the head and make the ears. At the very end I pull our instructor in to bring me a bit for the tail.
"Thanks for your help. This is the mousiest-looking mouse I've done so far." Glass Ninja helps me break it off the pipe.
Tall Vase has promised to help me with another flower. I lay out a mix of fuchsia and copper ruby light for the petals, with a few flecks of green frit thrown in. The rest of green will be for the leaves.
Once again my gather is on the small side, leaving not quite enough room for leaves and a stem. Tall Vase is bringing me bits for leaves at a pace I can barely keep up with. When we're ready to lengthen it for the stem, Glass Ninja and our instructor jump in with torches. I pull on the punty rod while Tall Vase grips the petals. We slowly get a stem.
"How many glassblowers does it take to help me make a flower?" I ask them, pulling and sweating.
"It should take only one," Glass Ninja says.
There's always room for improvement.
We put it away and clean up for the night.
3/1/19 Living With My Work
Saturday's flower is a keeper. It goes with the accidental blue cat on the display case at home.
Frog-Eyed Kitty goes to work with me, sending Lumpy home.
The windowsill is becoming the place where I live with my work for a while, looking at pieces while I brush my teeth, moving some to the discard box, figuring out how to improve upon others. The ones I look at the most are the ones that end up going away. Some never make it up there.
3/2/19
As I write this I look again at the blue vessel. It looks so much better in photographs than it does in real life. I'm pretty sure it'll be the next piece to be moved into the giveaway pile.
On Monday Prodigy is bringing in a box of scrap glass left over from his grandmother's stained glass work. Our instructor has already tested it for us. We don't have a specific assignment for this week. I've taken the open Saturday slot a week from now. That'll give me time to play and work out some kinks at the same time. I need a good mouse and a couple good funnels. Then I'll start wrapping stuff in colored threads again; it's been a while.
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