“They want me to ‘blog’ about the Glass Center. I’ve never even ‘blogged’ before,” I said, looking around at the gang of glassblowing punk-teenagers who I carpool with. “What is a ‘blog’?” I asked, letting the “blog” roll off the tongue like the name of an unfamiliar foreign city. Nick, a life-long friend and fellow student at the glass center, looked at me like a fire hydrant with an increasingly loose valve and finally expelled his vital insight at all within earshot. “Well Connor, it’s basically an online journal.” Surprised by the simplicity and elegance of his answer, I felt stunted by my lack of such seemingly quintessential knowledge. For all I knew, the internet was just this “clicky, flashy” square on the computer that threw emails at you and stole your credit card number. But here we are, communicating almost telepathically through a computer. My thoughts are going straight into size-12 Trebuchet font and my pixelated words are streaming right into your thoughts, through your eyes. Fifty years ago, I would’ve had to write a book, and pay for publishing costs. In the end maybe two people would buy it, and they would most likely be my parents. Now I can just type my opinions on the Internet, for free. Who comes up with this stuff?
So I guess I’ll get onto what I was asked to do, and that is talking about this Pittsburgh Glass Center place and it’s wonderful high school programs:
My name is Connor Scott and I’m an 18 year old high school senior from the suburbs 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh. I enjoy drawing (usually on paper), playing ultimate frisbee (preferably outside), and good music (the kind with loud bass and a mandolin). Oh, and every so often I like to blow some glass. I’ve never written a journal, let alone a journal that people will read, so I hope it’s just like talking to myself.
Here’s a little history. I first walked into the glass center a little more than a year ago after Jason Forck (high school glass instructor) came to my school and wooed my imagination with his wonderful pictures of glowing furnaces and glass sculptures. Before I started my classes I knew very little about glass blowing. I knew a few things about that famous pirate, Chihuly, and I knew that glass could melt if you got it hot enough (like when you take your dad’s blow torch and heat up a glass bottle, and it explodes, and you have to go to the emergency room). But I learned fast enough that glass is one of the most curious and extraordinary mediums that an artist can use. I love drawing and painting but at a certain point it’s not challenging. Glassblowing is fast and in your face. You need to keep up and things don’t always turn out the way you want them to. The Moby Dick to my Ahab.
I’ve never taken glassblowing classes anywhere else but I’m certain PGC offers the best (at least in Pennsylvania). I mean the student to teacher ratio is never more than 1/8 and you get so much freedom to really experiment with the medium. This semester is my third run through the gauntlet and I’m hoping to make something really… worth all that money. That was a joke but at a certain level it’s very true. The plan for this year is to pop out two big projects, completely planned out and conceptualized. I’m terrible with planning things out ahead of time (I’m more of a “let’s see where the wind takes me” kind of guy) so this will be interesting.
Weeks 1-4:
Since I’m starting a little late on this seeing as I’m four classes in, let me just paraphrase February 17th- March 10th: Crash, bang, crack, smack and “Goddammit!”
We’ve learned a few new tricks with the torch and color but so far I really haven’t kept anything worthwhile. My partner in crime, Bart, made his first eyeball (his project is a set of eyeballs) this weekend and that was a fun one. It broke of course, but we’ll get it right next week. I’ve been flip-flopping on what exactly I want to make but I’m sure it will incorporate small arms and hands somehow. Maybe it will be like this self-destructive vessel I sketched up. The “concept” is a spherical vessel ripping open a hole in its head, then I’ll probably put flowers of something in it opening so it doesn’t seem morbid. Maybe I’ll coldwork an uncomfortable mouth on him. I find the idea extremely humorous.
The coldworking studio smelled like stale beer and vodka yesterday.
I know, I know, we aren’t supposed to use any of the studios at PGCwhile under the influence. Fear not, none of us were actually drinking, just chopping the bottles in half. In pursuit of recycling glass bottles, my classmates and I resorted to gathering all the empties in our homes, pouring perfectly good booze down the sink and even buying vodka – just for the fancy bottle!
For this final coldworking project, we were able to use all the tools and techniques we’ve learned so far:
Out of the entire process, grinding and polishing took the most time. The monotony of these two steps makes me a little impatient. Even so, I put up a good hustle to stay focused and was able to complete my vase from start to finish. Our class came up with a good variety of retrofitted glass ware – a set of beer bottle drinking glasses, a Maker’s Mark goblet and two variations on vodka vases.
I still need to finish coldworking many of the other projects we worked on this session (apparently my hustle was not so good during previous classes). I’ll be heading into the coldshop to wrap that business up on my own. Then on March 20th I head back to the hot shop for Hot II. Thanks to Ashley and my classmates for another amazing glass adventure!
I didn’t get many tasks done, but the two (extremely time intensive) things I did work on - I felt pretty good about.
After some serious practice time on the lathe, I think I finally have a better grasp on lenses. I wanted to try and fix those scuff marks I made last week during my first lens attempt. I tried making the lens bigger (so it would extend past the scuff marks), then I tried adding smaller lenses where each of the scuffs were. I liked the way the small lens would overlap the large lens, creating a nice, sharp edge where they met. So I added a bunch of lenses, all clustered together. They looked a lot better than my original lens with the scuffs, kind of like a caterpillar.
I probably spent a little too long perfecting my lens-caterpillar. When I finally hopped off the lathe, I went straight to the grinding wheel to start on my cube. Each of us received a cube made in the hot shop (they look like ice cubes). We are supposed to grind those cubes down using the roughest grit (80) on all six sides. Then we use the next roughest grit (220) for five of the sides, then the next roughest (400) on four of the sides, etc. When we finish, we’ll have a cube that displays six different finishes, each increasingly smoother. The final finish is a Cerium polish.
It took me at least an hour (probably a little more) to grind all six sides of my cube on the 80 wheel. I guess the first step takes the longest, since you are also grinding the cube down so that the edges are sharp. Unfortunately, by the time I finished we had to clean up. I still have five more finishes to do on my cube and next week is our last class. Since we’ll spend next class recycling glass bottles into glasses, I have some homework to get to before then – grind away!
Folks here at the PGC are running around and keeping secrets.
The usual shuffle has become a bit more hurried as many of the glass artists on staff are finalizing their work for our upcoming exhibit,From the Earth to the Fire and Back.
I first noticed the change over the weekend, when several staffers were using their days off to work in the studios. Images were being prepared for transfer, glass was being cut to size and kiln schedules were discussed. Our awesome glass staff members, many of your favorite Pittsburgh glass artists and some of PGC’s high school glass students are grueling away to make the deadline. As one artist rushed through the office I asked, “Can you tell me what you’re working on?” his reply, “No!” Apparently, this is one top secret show.
Our current exhibit, Behind the Lens, by Nathan J. Shaulis closes on February 28th. Come check out his photos of life behind the scene at PGC. Then be ready to visit us for From the Earth to the Fire and Back, which opens on March 5th. In celebration of the upcoming World Environment Day (Pittsburgh is the North America host city!) this juried exhibit focuses on the environment, explored through glass.
Trial and error. Lathe and dremel.
I might just be in love with the lathe. Or, maybe with the dremel. It’s a pretty close race.
At the start of class I used the dremel to add detail to my cup from last week. After a few shaky lines, I got a basic feel for how quickly I should move and how steady my hand needed to be. I managed to “draw” some relatively smooth lines before moving onto our new project…graals.
Normally, graals are blown in the hotshop with clear glass and colored glass is added to the outside. After cooling, the graals are carved or etched in the coldshop, cutting through the color to reveal the clear glass beneath (Similar to sgraffito). Finally, they are reheated, stuck on a punty, coated in clear glass again and then blown a final time. For our class, we were only going to coldwork graals. (Big thanks to the tech crew for making graals and cubes for us).
Our graals were big, thick spheres, so I sliced mine open with the saw and ground the sharp edge down on the grinding wheel. Then I headed to the lathe. When Ashley showed us the lathe using spherical miracle wheels, I wasn’t that excited about the results. This week, she brought out centered wheels, which are a higher quality and offer more shape options. I used one of the centered wheels to carve nice, sharp lines in my graal.
My first line was a little wonky, I had some difficulty keeping the lathe straight and following the same path. After the second line I had figured out how to slowly and evenly rock the piece back and forth for much cleaner results. I also tried putting in a lens using one of the spherical miracles. For a lens, you need to hold the piece very steady while rotating it 360° to create an even circle. I couldn’t get the hang of this as quickly. Since I wasn’t holding my piece still, I ended up getting scuff marks outside of the lens. When I have the time to do a few more, I think I can get the hang of it.
I’m finding that the techniques we learn in the coldshop usually involve a few wonky first tries but after a couple practice runs, the results really tidy up.
Next week, I tackle the cube and six different finishes!
Since starting at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in October, I’ve been really keen on trying out stained glass. I can’t quite place my finger on why I find this particular glass technique so appealing – it may involve my penchant for organizing or love of intricate patterns. Regardless, I was pretty excited to try out a stained glass workshop.
Up in the warm shop, everyone picked out a simple, pre-drawn pattern for our stained glass and the glass of course. With much help from our teacher, Charmaine, we cut the glass to the shapes of our pattern. To properly join the shapes, we needed to grind the edges. What do you use to grind the edges? The giant, gritty wheels in the cold shop, of course! How helpful was that first coldworking class? My survey says very helpful. I set to work grinding all the edges so everything would fit snugly together. After a quick rinse and dry, the pieces were ready to join.
Lead came is the traditional method used in stained glass, but is limited to two-dimensional pieces. We used the copper foil method which allows for three-dimensional shapes. The steps go something like this:
Seems pretty simple on paper. It even looks pretty simple when Charmaine does it. I worked through the initial steps without getting discouraged (even though my solder lines were fairly lumpy). Once I began soldering the outside edges, I started to get cranky. Suddenly, the solder didn’t want to stay where I put it, and gravity forced my patience into frustration. If I tried soldering with the glass lying down, the solder dropped to the table. If I tried soldering with the glass propped up, the solder dripped off the edges. After many deep breaths and failed attempts, I managed to get solder all around the edges. Not perfect, but certainly a successful first attempt. As Charmaine reassured me, this was just my first stained glass. Perhaps after my third or fourth attempt, I’ll have enough practice to start getting picky!
This Saturday, I took my first coldworking class (one week late, due to last week’s snowpocalypse). Coldworking is exactly what it sounds like - methods of altering your glass once it is cold. The cold shop is a land of grinding wheels, belt sanders, water and grit. These tools are used to tidy up glass art, polish it and decorate it.
Our teacher, Ashley, ran through about nine demos on different machines, speed racer style. She ground glass on different wheels, carved lines using the lathe, signed her name with a dremel and sandblasted. The first few demos were all on wheels, grinding glass. When you grind glass, you start with the roughest grit and work your way up to the finer grit for a smoother finish – just like sandpaper. In the next two weeks, we’ll be using the wheels to practice six different finishes on glass cubes.
After the demos, we were given pint glasses to try out the lathe, the dremel and the sandblaster. I was most interested in the sandblaster, so I used masking tape and stickers to mask the areas on my cup that I didn’t want sandblasted. The sandblaster uses compressed air to propel sand, creating a “frosted” surface anywhere that isn’t masked. There are no less than six switches you have to turn on for the sandblaster – power switches, light switches, air pressure and one other guy that I’m not sure what he does. After I had finished sandblasting my cup, it was already time to clean up. (I think I spent a little too much time perfecting my masking tape design.) I’m hoping to pick up a little of Ashley’s speed racer style before next week so I can practice some of the other tools!
My two most important lessons from the first week:
The cold shop is freezing, wear an extra sweat shirt.
The cold shop is cold, but not dry. Nearly every tool requires water to keep the glass from getting too hot while you are sanding or grinding.
Over the weekend I also took a stained glass class – check back later this week to find out which coldworking tool I got to use and which part of the process had me the most frustrated!
Where does glass come from?
After a successful gallery outing, I was curious how the glass supplies we use are created. Besides knowing that the tanks at PGC are magically full of glass, I didn’t know where the glass came from or how it was made. After a tour at Bullseye Glass Co., I can assure you that our frit, rods and plate glass products are not delivered by a white stork.
Just to backtrack a bit, the first time I saw a hot glass demo at the Pittsburgh Glass Center, I was blown away (this week’s cheesy pun is brought to you by my dad’s sense of humor). Watching the group of artists manipulate glass and work together as a well choreographed team was impressive to say the least. What I didn’t realize is that beginning with the mixing and melting of chemicals to make colored glass, even glass production involves a well timed process carried out by a highly skilled group of people.
In addition to exhibiting glass art (see the previous post), Bullseye produces glass for art and architecture in a variety of forms. If you buy supplies at PGC, you are using Bullseye products (we are an official Bullseye distributor). In their enormous factory in SE Portland, staff members mix batches of different colored glass, melt it, scoop it out and press into sheets, form into rods or even stringers. Throughout this process, the glass needs to be careful monitored for fusing compatibility, correct color and probably a few other things I’m not aware of.
My favorite part of the process was watching the glass come out of the tanks and prepared for sheets. One person would use a giant ladle to scoop out glass onto a table top. A second person would take that blob of glass and fold it over and over again getting it into the right shape before feeding it into rollers that pressed the glass into a sheet. Then the glass sheet was picked up with two tongs and placed on a tray to feed into the lehr – a long oven used for slowly cooling (down firing) the glass as it moves through on a conveyor belt.
The entire process was fascinating to watch and made me more appreciative of the materials we use and the time and precision necessary to create them. Hooray for the glass stork!
This Saturday I start my Coldworking class at Pittsburgh Glass Center - check back for lessons learned.
Looking at Glass with Mom My mom is inquisitive and a big supporter / admirer of the arts. We like to go look at art together and mom likes to ask me a lot of questions. While both of us were in Portland, OR over the winter break, I suggested a glass art outing (selfishly, I wanted to learn more about contemporary glass). We headed to Bullseye Gallery, which was showing two Australian glass artists; Mel George and Giles Bettison. Right off the bat, mom asked me how George created her wall mounted pieces. Besides knowing that they were kiln formed, I couldn’t tell her exactly. Each piece took the form of a group of Polaroids or a calendar. Given the recognizable format, we had a lot to discuss, even without knowing the exact process. We talked about what each piece represented, which we liked best and why. Mom liked “Portland Hue”, four glass Polaroids ranging from dark gray to light gray. She liked the simple and effective concept of Portland’s unfortunate weather pattern during the winter. Bettison’s work was far more visually intricate compared to George.Using murrine, Bettison constructed vessels and wall pieces with extremely vivid colors and pattern. After doing my research, I know that murrine is slices of cane, which is a group of different rods fused together. The cane is sliced to reveal the pattern created by the bundle of rods. Bettison’s work reminds me of quilt work; the murrine is the patches which are fused together instead of sewn. Once connected, the glass is formed into three dimensional objects or left as a two dimensional “picture”. With so many possible end results, I can imagine devoting years to learning this technique and never getting bored. Pittsburgh Glass Center teaches murrine and cane in some of the more advanced classes. There are quite a few hot shopsummer intensives this year that include these techniques. Upstairs there was a mish mash of work, ranging in artist and styles.Mom likes to ask me once we’ve seen everything, “Which one piece would you most like to own?” I decided on a piece by Michael Rogers,“A Faithful Likeness” (This piece from Jun Kaneko was a close second). The mixed media work featured a cast glass rabbit sitting inside an enormous blown glass bell etched with birds. The rabbit is holding fabric, thread and needle; which he has used to embroider a similar bird. In addition to my extreme fondness for rabbits, I was impressed with Rogers’ effective use of mixed media. Integrating multiple glass techniques with other materials (In this case fabric), he creates well-rounded scenery to tell his story. I was also fascinated that the rabbit had been compelled to mimic the birds on fabric. For the record, Mom didn’t quite agree with me, she said the birds scared her. This piece really resonated with me so I did a little searching for more of Rogers’ work. Turns out, Rogers and Richard Hirsch (both professors at RIT’s College of Imaging Arts and Sciences) did a dual residency and exhibition at PGC’s Hodge Gallery back in 2007/2008.Boy, do I ever wish I had been in Pittsburgh to see the show. Honestly, what could be more exciting than an amazing glass artist and an amazing ceramic artist teaming up? I can’t think of a single thing, can you?
This Friday and Saturday, I’ll be helping out at the Pittsburgh Glass Center’s Holiday Glass Sale. For these two days only, PGC will host over 20 area glass artists - each selling their handmade glass work. (I have a sneaking suspicion that my whole family is receiving glass gifts this year!)
On Saturday there will also be Make-It-Now ornaments in the hot shop. Word on the street is that pre-registration is full, but the PGC folks always try to fit in walk-ins. This is a great opportunity to try glass blowing even if you have zero glass experience.
For all the nitty gritty details, visit the PGC website. Hope to see you this weekend!
