Last month, Jeff and I took a day off of working and parenting, and spent it pretending to be glass artists. Along with four friends, we spent the day at an artist’s studio and he very patiently taught us how to work with glass–the kind of glass that is molten and hanging off the end of a steel rod. Here is a hugely simplified explanation of the process (you’ll notice I use technical terms. Like “blob”).
The first task is to gather a blob of glass on the end of the rod, being careful not to put your thumb over the hole (the one you’ll be blowing into later); otherwise, you’ll trap steam inside and burn yourself. Then, carefully carry the blob over to a steel-topped table called a marver and roll it back and forth to shape it (so this is called marvering). Keep twisting the steel rod continuously. Repeat the gathering process until the blob is a suitable size.
Then, blow! But don’t forget to keep twisting the whole time. Blow hard enough, but not too hard. Once the bubble is the right size, reheat the glass (the furnace used for this purpose is called the glory hole). Then shape the glass using tongs, damp wooden molds or several thicknesses of newspaper, also damp. Side note: I have heard from more than one glass artist that the Wall Street Journal is best suited for this job. Once the shape is satisfactory, the finished product is snapped off the end of the rod and goes into an annealer to cool (depending on the size of the piece this can take days or weeks).
It took me at least 30 minutes of this process, with constant supervision and assistance from the artist and his team, to make a sad, deformed little cup, the type of thing you could buy at IKEA for 99 cents. Still, I MADE IT with MY OWN HANDS from MOLTEN GLASS how cool is that!
Next we tackled paperweights. For this we used bits and pieces of colored glass and canes. These are like long straws made of glass, which may have colors or designs embedded within them; you can snap or cut them into pieces and stand them vertically to reveal what’s inside.
Arrange these pieces onto a stone tile. Place this into a small warming oven to bring it closer in temperature to the clear, hot glass that will be added. That glass is again gathered from the pot and then gently pressed against the pieces on the tile (the artist had to do this part for us). Once they have adhered, the entire blob is reheated in the glory hole and then shaped with the molds or damp newspaper. Once you are happy with the shape, the paperweight goes into the annealer to cool. After a few days or a week it is ready for polishing.
I am pretty happy with my finished paperweight. It’s very hard to predict what you’ll get after the colored glass pieces are picked up and melted into your clear glass. I chose based on color and didn’t try to plan a finished arrangement or design for how they’d look, so I wasn’t disappointed.
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Over on the Reviews tab, I have a giveaway for you: kids’ winter boots. Go see.
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