New Adventures in Glass

So I was able to play with an early Christmas present today up in Sacramento. Donna, Selena, and Rebecca all chipped in to enroll me in a glass blowing class at Rainbow Glass in North Highlands. Glass blowing, like for many of us is something that easily catches the attention of folks for the colors, skill, and of course fire. While I have worked with glass now for a few years, I had yet to get to work in a glass blowing shop, so this was a fantastic opportunity. The day was fantastic and the class was awesome. Some of the skills I have slowly developed as a lamp worker did transfer over, but there were many things still to figure out and a whole new set of skills that had to function together to make it work.

My first piece was to be a "floppy" bowl. Lots of hand holding and being told when I could/should do certain parts of the work. Setting in the frit into the gather was cool as was watching the glass work its way into the gather and being ready to form the initial bubble. It was definitely not the way I imagined it in the past of just blowing the glass open, but using chemistry and physics to make the glass work the way I wanted it too. Everything was going well, with the bowl forming like it should and I spun myself a lovely bowl. However, that's when I obviously had not paid enough for the glass spirits to watch over me properly and the glass would not release off of the punty. The bottom of the bowl chipped apart and the bowl was an example of want can go wrong. Fortunately, having worked with glass, I understood this and was only slightly disheartened. There are two videos taken by Deborah White from Rainbow Glass, but I am not able to place it here currently. I will be sharing it onto the Dark Horse Glass page on Facebook for now.

The biggest problem I have now is how to put together a glass blowing workshop and do more of this!