Glass: I blew it. Literally. So that's good then.

[mrissa]

So yesterday I went and had my first glassblowing experience.

It had initially come with this immensely complicated plan, wherein timprov would come with me and take pictures if he saw opportunities for good ones, and markgritter would drive up and meet us when he was done with work, and we would all meet up with some other friends for dinner. None of that happened. It would not have worked in the slightest. timprov taking pictures would have been okay if he saw opportunities--I never know, part of the reason I enjoy his photography is that I don't try to dictate his eye--but the bits that involved trying to coordinate stuff after or me going places or eating things after--that would totally not have worked, so I'm glad it all fell through. Because I had basically enough Mris left to get home and decompress and...yeah. Focus adrenaline wow. Stuff. Stuff.

There is all kinds of stuff about glassblowing that is so not clear from observing it. The form of this thing was that the guy teaching me did a paperweight while telling me what he was doing at each step, and then I did one with him assisting me, reminding me if I'd forgotten anything, there to jump in and smack me if I started to do anything abjectly stupid, etc. (No smacking needed. But y'know.) And there were things that seemed like they would be clear from being four inches away that were not.

One of the things--he estimated that the furnace with the molten glass in it was at 2400 F (about 1300 for those of you playing along in the Celsius version of the home game) and the one we used to heat up the glass when it was cooling down was at 2000 F (more like 1100 C). And if you had asked me, I would have told you that those temperatures had differences in physical effects, in which things annealed or etc., but that in terms of human experience, they were roughly the same temperature, that is to say, Really Damn Hot.

And no. Seriously no. The one was Really Damn Hot But Copable. The other was Seriously Frightening Hot. Brace Yourself And Give Yourself A Pep Talk Hot. The difference between standing four inches away from the person who is dipping the metal rod into glass that is that kind of hot and being the person who is doing it really matters quite a bit, it turns out. My instructor, when he was doing the stage where he was doing stuff and telling me what, was overtly and vocally quite relieved to be dealing with a former physicist, so that he knew he could just say things like "angular momentum" and be fine, he didn't have to gauge my knowledge there. And I said, "Well, we'll see if I can actually put that into action," and he said, "But everybody has that problem. So now there's just one problem instead of two problems." Fair enough.

Do you know what tool you use to shape a glass paperweight into the pleasant roundness that it has? Folded over wet newspaper. And your hand. Without gloves. Just your hand. That part? That was my favorite part. That part was seriously awesome. I also liked the bit where I got to use shears and jacks and things to just mess with the glass I'd just colored, to make the swirly bit that would soon go in the middle. But the bit where you say, okay, now I will do this with my hand and a pad of newspaper, oop, better wet down the newspaper. And there are sparks flying onto your shirt because you are shaping molten glass with your hand and some wet newspaper. That was pretty cool.

One of the really hard things is that all of my safety instincts from years of vertigo say that anything even remotely dangerous should be pointed downwards. Molten glass flows. Molten glass is not any safer pointed downwards, and it's not good for the shape of it. So that's a thing I will have to see if I can cope with, or else...not, I guess. But it was a thing the instructor helped me with yesterday, and my paperweight--we'll see when I pick it up--it was still annealing when I left, had to anneal for many hours. But I think it turned out all right for a beginner piece.

I will not be doing this again soon. It took a lot out of me. I have stuff on the calendar for tomorrow, but if it was stuff for which I needed to do much other than sit under a blanket on the couch, it would be getting canceled. Last night when I was still letting the adrenaline wear off, I wrote that I thought it was mostly adrenaline really, not really energy use. And that was wildly optimistic. I am whumped. But. It was a thing I did, and I liked it, and I think I will do it again. Just not soon or often. It was never going to be soon or often. The question was whether it was going to be at all. I think maybe it will be at all. I think yes.

The mobility disability stuff my aunt mentioned is not a thing they apparently do often. I am now on their mailing list, so if they decide to do it again, I will jump at that chance. Otherwise I will have to figure out times when I can block out time and, more to the point, want to block out time, for just a little. And as I said: maybe not soon or often, but I think yes. They teach you to do amphorae, you see. Cones and bowls and cylinders and paperweights, all early on, but also in the early on things: amphorae. Hee. They would. If I was having not too much of dizzy days and gave them money and found enough energy and showed up. They would help me learn to make a glass amphora, and it would be mine that I made. Not this year. But some year. It would maybe be clear or maybe have some blue in it, I am not sure. But it would be my amphora that I dipped into the fiery furnace and made, like this ball will be my ball. And I cannot fully explain why that is a thing. Cones and cylinders are fine. But bowls and amphorae. Um. Well, we all have things we can't explain.

So take that, universe.

Comments

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

Wow! The more you do, the less the adrenaline will happen, the less it will take out of, and the more it will give back. (I hope.) Now I want to try.

[aedifica]

Oh, that's marvelous! Not that it took so much out of you, but that you got to do it and you made a thing and yay. I enjoyed reading this very much.

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Everyone loves amphorae! (Urm. For values of 'everyone' that include Mrissas and Alecs, apparently.)

[aedifica]

And Lizas!

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

And Alenas!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Amphorae forever!

(I'm partial to a nice Dressel 2 or a Rhodian, myself. Dressel 20s don't have quite the same aesthetic...)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Can it be a little amphora? The size to wear as a perfume-holding pendant? I like those very much.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I expect that those are probably much, much harder, but I may be wrong.

[kitryan.livejournal.com]

I think that anything smaller than 8" would be more of a flameworking project. Amphora seem to be a standard early project. My class did them after cubes and cups and bowls- we put a foot and handles on them.

[tiger-spot.livejournal.com]

Awesome!

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

oh my gosh that is the awesomest thing ever. you are awesome.

i remember when i took a stained glass class, and the first thing they taught us all to do was break glass. USING OUR HANDS. so cool.

may i ask where you did this fine thing? i think i am not free for art classes for a while she said understatedly, but it sounds so awesome.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

FOCI up on Hennepin in Nordeast.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! Stained glass! Although, even more than the breaking glass, which was satisfying when it did it cleanly in the shape I needed, was the pure sensual joy of laying down a PERFECT bead of solder.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

<3

And thank you for the card.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Carry on growing older at a rate of one year per year! Much appreciated.

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Pictures of pretty glass things you made, please?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It is still at the studio. We will fetch it on Friday. Pictures after that.

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Hooray!

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful - I'm glad it exceeded expectations. (Well, not glad it exceeded expectations of energy required, but otherwise.)

[tewok.livejournal.com]

That sounds exceptionally cool. Thanks for telling the story of the blown glass.

(Also, thanks for the story of the day-, month- year-dreamers. I finally read that a week ago and really liked it. Sorry I don't remember the title.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That would be "Uncle Flower's Homecoming Waltz." Thanks. I'm glad you liked it.

[kaolinfire.livejournal.com]

Sooooo COOOL! Congratulations!!!!

[ckd]

You know what this sounded like in my head? It sounded like Happy But Tired M'ris Voice. The tired could be left out, but the happy...well, it has me grinning.

[blue-hat-guru.livejournal.com]

Cool!

Is there a reason for no gloves?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

1) They had no gloves, and this is their deal.

2) I believe--though I could be wrong--that the amount of fine motor control needed at various stages is not consistent with large fireproof gloves. And from the sparks and smoke and steam that got on my shirt (it had to be a cotton shirt, they didn't want artificial fibers melting), I expect that large non-fireproof gloves are a great deal less safe for your hands. Also there are lots of times when you hold out your hand above the hot metal or whatever and gauge whether it's too hot to handle and needs further cooling. I expect they don't want to lose that sensory data.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Oh! Like checking oven temperature with no thermometer! Hold your hand in the heat and count, and if you've done it often enough, you don't need to count.

[kitryan.livejournal.com]

I agree re:dexterity. In class one had massive gloves for catching the piece when it was tapped off the pipe and carried to the anneler, like big giant space suit mittens and one could not do things like use the jacks or feel how wet the pad of newspaper was with that on

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Coming in very late:

"Do not wear gloves. They encourage bad habits."

The idea I was told is that if you have gloves as the safety to prevent you getting burned when you touch something hot, you'll never learn not to gauge when something is hot and not touch it.

And, yeah, it gets in the way of motor dexterity, too.

M'ris: Congratulations! I hope you get to do it again sooner rather than later.

[pameladean]

I am SO GLAD.

I never expected to want to exclaim about the awesomeness of wet newspaper. Wow.

P.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

This is so awesome. I can tell how excited you are from the tone of it. (And tired!)

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That sounds absolutely amazing.

[vcmw]

Awesome! I'm so very glad.

[rosefox]

Splendid!

[aamcnamara.livejournal.com]

That is so cool.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

That sounds so cool.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow, an amphora. That would be a thing.

And it sounds really amazing making a paperweight, and it's so great that you got to do it.

There's a place in Quebec City where you can watch people blowing glass and buy glass that they have blown, and it's very warm in there on a cold day so when we went in January we went and watched them for some time. And it's really impressive, but I feel no urge to do it. But wow, you do, and you did! And good luck with doing it some more.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think there are a lot of things like that: they're really impressive but they're not one's own things. You can watch and go, "Wow, that a person should do that." And not, "Me, I will do that, that is for me." And then there are the things that are for you, or at least the things where you go, "Hmm, I wonder." And not just, "If I was putting that in a story, what details would I want."

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy you were able to do this and that it was such a good experience and one you'll be able to do again.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Glass-blowing is deeply interesting! I've spent a few days watching the students making stuff at glass-blowing camp in WI, and really learned a lot. Never had any interest in doing my own. It's fun to read about your excitement with glass.

Other glass-blowers tell me that they need a certain amount of practice to keep up their skills once they have them, and that this is more true with vessels than with paperweights, so let us hope that you can get the skills to make your wishes come true.

K.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

This made me really happy for you. Actually, happy for me, too, because I never knew about wet newspaper as a tool for glass shaping or most of the other stuff, though I did watch Venetian glass blowers make a rooster, once. I'm delighted you got to try it out.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

YAY. Glasswork is so awesome, it's just-- I've almost only worked with it cold, because that was all I've had the space to do, but I did have a science class in high school where they taught us to shape our own pipettes, and yes. That. And this sounds more than that, and really impressive, and yes. I am so glad for you.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It sounds wonderful. Not, perhaps, the thing that grabs me and takes me over, but it grabs you, and I can tell, and that is wonderful.

(I'd like a loom again. And a darkroom for film photography. Those are not going to happen. But they were mine.)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Very cool! And also, I agree that little glass amphorae sound most excellent. (little as in jewelry size and little as in not giant wine jars for stacking in ship bottoms both)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I expect that the jewelry size, while awesome, take a great deal more skill than the beginner level is going to allow. This is one of the times where "now do the same thing but way smaller" may actually be a much finger-tuned skillset. I may be wrong.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

My guess would be that handles & finishing might be easier in a larger size, and that mold blowing would be easier in smaller. But this is the kind of perspective picked up from things I've heard in passing, not from actually seeing or doing things, and I don't know how free shaping would translate. Clearly you should ask the people who know next time you are there.

[nenya_kanadka]

This entire story is amazing. Every artistic and sensawunda instinct I have is sitting up and going WOW! :D I'm so glad you got to do this, and will most probably do it again. Awesome.

[moiread]

VICTORY! :D

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I find that adrenaline rushes really use up a lot of energy, myself.

Also, while I once did some "real" glass-blowing like that- I also once took a class on borosilicate (pyrex) hollow forms. These are done with torches, and then ovens for annealing... but are smaller-scale. I've seen miniature amphorae that people with more skill and talent than I had made. (I had pretty much no skill and even less talent, unfortunately... but it was fun to try.)