Glassblowing Workshop: Day Two

I'm showered and in pajamas (surprise). I am tired. My legs are tired from standing on a concrete floor for two days, my arms are tired from spinning pipes during the workshop, I'm still dehydrated, and my belly is burning - probably from the Indian food we ordered for lunch.

But boy was the class fun! Today I got to bring home the flowers that I made on Saturday. Pretty, right?
I also have this beautiful paperweight that is going with me to work tomorrow. Isn't is cool?






Today we actually blew glass. To make a very complicated process as simple as possible, it requires multiple gathers of molten glass, lots of blowing into the glass to trap air, lots and lots of spinning, lots and lots of marvering (shaping/flattening on the marver surface), and lots of bench time spinning, using tools and spinning. (Did I mention spinning?) My body is tired, but I actually made three things today: a little practice glass, a huge drinking glass, and another paperweight with a cooler technique than yesterday. But because it needs to cool overnight, and because I have a busy week, I won't be able to get today's work until Thursday or Friday. *sigh*

I highly recommend this class. Now that I have taken the Introductory Workshop, I'll definitely be going back for more - I caught the bug. :) But what's neat is that you really do feel more and more comfortable and get more and more confident after every piece that you make. I felt ten times better working on my own today that yesterday, and we could all feel ourselves getting better at the basic skills.

This is the place:
Corradetti Gallery
2010 Clipper Park Rd, Suite 119
Baltimore, Maryland 21211
410.243.2010


More pictures - these are LOADS more interesting!

















A clear drinking glass. Here he is dripping water on the joint between the glass and the pipe to make a clean break.

















You have to shape the glass quickly as it cools.

















This looks to be right after a second gather. That's a lot of glass!

Firing a vase to keep it hot enough to shape.
















This is cool - the glass on the right is being blown and shaped on the marver. The vase on the left is being shaped using a tool to flatten the base.

















Once this vase was shaped on the first pipe, he had to transfer it to a second pipe to complete mouth/opening of the vase. This shows classmates fusing the new pipe to the finished vase bottom so that the vase can be removed from the first pipe.

















A paperweight on a pipe - straight on. Cool pattern, eh?

















My two new glasses and paperweight in the kiln. The colors that you see aren't the real colors. As they cool they will becoming the color I added to the glass. (Tune in later in the week for the finished products!)

Update! One of my classmates just sent me pictures of me!

Here I am gathering glass at the furnace.
Me cooling my pipe.
Some marvering at the marver table.
Benchwork! Don't I look knowledgeable? Haha. :)