Floppy Flop and Pentaflop
23 February 2022
I have three goals this semester:
1. Get comfortable enough with feathering that I can do it without gritting my teeth;
2. Learn how to flop a bowl consistently; and
3. Work on other shapes like vases and straight bowls.
The plan is to feather first, to get it out of the way before I get tired or change my mind. Second is floppy bowl practice. Third is whatever shape I want with whatever frit I want, like dessert.
I: Tuesday
Sleepless isn't here and All The Glass has reneged on his promise to thread today. No matter; I'll soldier on. I drag out the dreaded apparatus, a metal sawhorse with two sets of pullies, and a yoke affixed to what looks like might be a car wheel.
It all looks somewhat rusty and steampunk.
I'm still working through all the new colors I bought over winter break. Today I'll thread with a light purple called Violet and an electric-looking Cornflower Blue, which might lean towards the purple end of blue. One never knows with rods how they'll look when they're blown out. It all depends on the thickness and what they're up against, which will be Enamel White today.
Thread Sherpa assists me, and I seem to remember how to do this. Thread Sherpa does his away-pulls first and suggests I try that. I tell him that I attempted that last semester and it was a mess. It feels weird going against his suggestions; after all, he is Thread Sherpa. He's the one who got me started in the spring of 2020, but he's been away since then, and I've worked through this on my own, with help from All The Glass and Our Instructor. There's no one right way to do anything, really, and I've discovered all the wrong ways.
I go for a long-neck vase and miss, as I usually do with my feathered pieces (it has to do with where the glass winds up after feathering, and I need to work on that). The blue is true to form: runny. It overshadows the violet. Still, I get it into the annealer and count it as a win.
Next up, floppy bowls in Watermelon Green. The first one gives me five flops, and I'm overly excited about it. So, naturally, the bowl cracks in half when I break it off the punty. The bottom was too thin and the punty too hot.
I try again, and this time I accidentally hit it against the floor as I'm spinning it out. It shatters.
The third time, the bottom cracks off with the punty, but I put it away anyhow, frustrated. Maybe I can make it part of a sculpture, glue a smaller floppy bowl over the hole, make a flower. I have just the thing at home, a little yellow one from last semester.
(When I retrieve it two days later, it goes straight to the scrap bucket. Radiating from the hole are two cracks, jagged ones that I can feel with my fingers, a sure sign that the piece is on its way to falling apart.)
I still have two more rods in the oven. With only three of us working, there's time for both of them.
Purple Rose, a solid-colored rod, blows out with a blue bottom and a pink top. I need to play with this color some more.
I'm getting tired and we're running out of time. The Wine Red rod becomes a large ornament.
Last Thursday's floppy fail is out of the annealer. It's so off-kilter I'm not sure where the bottom should be, and I spend more time than reasonable trying to grind it down so it'll sit flat.
I also have to spend a few minutes grinding the bottom of Thursday's yellow floppy fail-turned-bowl to get it to sit evenly.
When I put all of last week's floppy fails together, the three of them make one art.
The pieces of tape on the underside of each one has the date and the name of my partner. All of my pieces have this. The labels help me organize on critique days. Now that I have so many new colors, I'm recording the color too.
II: Thursday
Since the beginning of the semester, we've been signing up for Thursday slots because class size is restricted. I get an hour and a half with Pumpkin Master as my partner.
I haven't given up on floppy bowls, or on green. When the Watermelon Green one falls off the punty during transfer, I try again with Emerald Green. When I spin this one out, it doubles over on itself.
"I did it again!" I groan.
Our Instructor says, "Chihuly gets thousands for those!"
"Yeah, no," but I put it away anyhow.
I send myself to clear glass purgatory. This time I succeed, and, of course, Our Instructor has walked out of the classroom for these few minutes and doesn't see me do it.
III: Tuesday
Pumpkin Master is filling in for Thread Sherpa today. Last night, he asked me if I want to fill in for him this coming Saturday morning. I had to consult with several Hill Slugs first, unsure if I wanted to sacrifice a biking day for the chance to fill my house with more crap. Plain Jim immediately told me to go blow; there would be better days for riding. Tom said he might lead something, so I prepared myself for some middle fingers. Rickety, the tiebreaker, said I should take the class. I tell Pumpkin Master, "I'm in!"
Meanwhile, I have more new colors to plow through tonight. Poppy Red and Canary Yellow are for feathering. I walk Sleepless through the steps. The feathers are a little slanted and the cup heavy. Poppy red looks darker than the rod it comes from does. Canary Yellow is as advertised.
I don't even remember what Ultramarine looked like online. It's one of those rods that appears almost black; it doesn't start to look blue until I spin it out. I get four flops this time. The bottom is so tapered at the punty that I have to work to release it (and when it's finished I have to grind it way down to get it to sit straight). "Put a button on it next time," All The Glass suggests.
While Sleepless makes some more goblets (goblets are her thing), I think about what I should try next. There are two more rods in the oven: Blue Jade and Purple Lustre.
I thread Blue Jade onto an Enamel White base, but instead of feathering it, I leave it as a spiral. Taking All The Glass' advice, I ask him for help putting a button on the bottom. A button is a small bit of glass that gets flattened into the base. The punty attaches here, giving the piece more stability and the punty a place to break off without taking any color, or the bottom of the piece, with it.
I spin it out into a plate (or a "rondel," as they call it in the classroom). "Okay, button, do your thing," I beg as I knock the plate off the punty. It releases cleanly.
Duh! The spiral is on the outside, which is now the bottom, where nobody can see it! I should have put the white on last, not first!
There's a gap and a smudge on the top surface. The smudge is probably debris from inside the pipe. The gap probably happened while I was spinning it out. It's not a crack, though, so the plate is safe.
Sleepless makes another goblet, and then I pick up the last piece of rod. There's time enough to make a quick vase. I'm getting more comfortable with the pulled necks.
Maybe too comfortable. I hit the side of the glory hole in the early stages. That shit does not come off, ever. It bakes itself right in.
The "Lustre" in the color's title means it's a reducing color. Before I put it away, I ask All The Glass to "hit it with the big torch," as we call the propane tank with the two-foot flame. He does, and when we don't see a color change, he asks me if the color is on the inside or the outside. It's only going to reduce if it's on the outside.
Which it isn't. I picked up the rod and then coated it in clear. Derp. All The Glass aims the flame at the inside lip, which turns blue.
IV: Thursday
With the Omicron wave receding, the class occupancy restriction has been lifted. Tonight we're all supposed to show up at once. The Before Times mayhem has been restored. Phooey.
It's class project night. I beg Our Instructor not to make me a group leader this time, considering he's put me in charge every semester since 2020. He laughs and installs Tall Vase instead.
It's a strategic choice, Our Instructor says, because the two he's chosen to lead the two groups are the ones who are unable to make anything small. He wants our combination pieces to be small.
Tall Vase draws the plan on the floor in colored chalk:
I volunteer for the sphere. I like making spheres. This means I'm left holding the cylinder fused to the sphere, and I have to flash the thing in the glory hole, doors wide open to accommodate it. When they're about to bring the cone, I hand the mess off to Pumpkin Master to wrangle in the glory hole. "I don't trust myself," I tell him.
The cone falls off when they try to release it from its punty. They get it back onto the sphere with a messy blob between the two, and we put it away.
The other team's piece, two cylinders around a cone, the cylinders facing sideways like engines on a spaceship, is much more visually appealing.
I scuttle off to the sand blaster down the hall, to cover up the messy grinding marks on the clear floppy bowl. It looks much better now. I can't leave clear glass well enough alone.
There's time enough for us to gather at the whiteboard to sign up for a slot. I have one chance to flop a bowl with an Opal Dark Green rod. Tall Vase has a giant thing going in the glory hole, so I try to spin out at the furnace. This is never the best idea because a good spinout needs even heat; the furnace mouth, square, is not that. I spend so much time getting back on center during the spin that I drop it late, creating something that looks more like an inverted saddle or a stingray than a bowl. But at least it released from the punty because I put a button on it!
Which I then grind into oblivion because where the bottom is on this thing is almost arbitrary.
V: Saturday
The forecast has gone from marginally pleasant to cold with double-digit wind gusts. By the afternoon, the wind is supposed to get up to 45 mph. Tom has backed away from listing a ride; none of the Slugs seem to be going anywhere today.
As I'm getting coffee ready, I notice that the squirrels have kicked over another orb, again. I'd already put the top piece of the tall bottle tree into the ground. Now I sit the four orbs on the stake. They're encrusted with frozen mud, which I try to peel away with frozen fingers. I'll hose the glass off when it gets warm out. For now, they're safe at least.
My office mate has asked me for a picture of last semester's class project. I'd been in charge and chosen from the drawings a cone between two spheres. Tall Vase made the first sphere as big as he could get it. When we finished, the combination looked like a clown head. Tall Vase went and sand-blasted eyes, a mouth, and stripes onto it. Now it's a wicked clown that smirks at us from the top of annealer number one.
I have to feather again today, of course. I have three rods left to test: Cerulean Blue, Violet, and Seed Green.
On the Window Sill of Judgment at home sits a vase from last semester. It's a shape I like and I can't figure out how I got there. 
After I feather the blue and violet, I aim for a pulled-neck vase. This time, though, I put a lot more air into it before I pull, and the neck stays wider. Aha!
"It looks like a giant penis," I tell Tall Vase.
"I wasn't gonna say anything," he replies.
Once I get some air into the bottom of it, the piece looks like it wants to be a vase instead of a dildo. When it's on the punty, I get the top screaming hot and open it wide. And there it is, the shape I'm after.
"I forgot about the class project!" Tall Vase says. "Should we make a fish?"
"I don't know how to make a fish," I answer. He does. He gathers the two beginners around and draws the plan in chalk on the floor.
We decide to add some color, silver on the bottom like real fish, and brown on the top. I have some white frit out, so we use that for eyes. The fins are clear. I suggest we flatten the sides, which means I get more practice using the graphite pads.
Next up, a spiral rondel with Seed Green. This time, I'm going to thread first and coat the piece in white second.
The threading goes well. "Should I gather over before I put the clear on?" I ask Tall Vase. He thinks I should. This means I'll be working with more glass than usual, out of the 8 block and into the 10. I rarely do this.
"I'm out of my comfort zone," I tell him as I block the blob on the end of my pipe.
"No pain, no gain," he says.
Right.
He gives me some pointers to help me keep the sides cool and the top hot. This is great, because one reason I fail is that the sides collapse before the top is hot enough, giving me off-center clamshells.
He's got to push the doors wide open now as I go to spin it out. It stays round, which is what I want, and then it doesn't; it's too hot still. I drop the punty to let the glass collapse into a bowl instead. I get five good flops out of it, but now the spiral is on the inside.
It's much niftier than I thought it would be. I like it!
The spiral also looks like a lip wrap, which is good, because I haven't tried lip wraps yet.
So much for rods today.
Half of the 1:00 crew, Our Instructor and Glass Ninja, are here at noon, as they usually are, milling about and having lunch in the back. It's something Greek-looking, with spinach, and now I'm craving Greek food and spinach as I help Tall Vase with his next piece.
With 45 minutes left, I have time to load some Dark Violet Reddish frit onto a small gather of clear. I make another vase like the one before.
After I put it away, Glass Ninja, who can make a vase with one hand tied behind his back, gives me a suggestion for how to make the top thinner. Thanks! Next time.
We clean up and are out of the way by 12:45. I use the rest of the time to grind the bottom of the manta ray flat.
On the way home, the wind is whipping around and the signs on the interstate are warning of snow squalls. I'm glad I didn't ride today. For dinner, we get takeout from the spinach place.
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