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POTTERS TRY TO BURN THEIR HANDS

March 11, 2007 By Vivid Image

 

The Cool
Clay Coyotes
Take a Shot At

HOT GLASS!

Where We Take a Field Trip To

FOCI GLASS in Minneapolis
Merry Christmas! Betsy went really creative and gave the whole gang a trip to FOCI GLASS to try our hand at hot glass for Christmas. We all love all the handcrafted glass we carry in the Gallery, and had read about it, seen demos and watched videos, but this was a chance to actually try it. WOW! was it hard!
Foci Glass is a studio established by Michael Boyd to do his own glasswork. Now he also teaches other glass blowers, rents studio space, gives tours and, what we did, offers a hands-on experience to make a simple paperweight (I say ‘simple’ with tongue in cheek). Like making pots, this is a lot harder than it looks.
Tom and Ann doing their first gathers.

The glass is in a crucible in the chamber and held at about 2000 degF. Finding the surface of the glass was harder than it seems…you just kind of feel for it, twist, raise the rod (punty) and roll it up, all at once.

Then you take the gather to a metal table (marvar) and try to roll the molten glass into an oblong, supposedly round form. Again a seemingly simple operation….NOT!

As simple a motion as rolling the punty takes practice. The urge is to grab it and turn…which doesn’t get you enough of a roll. Here Michele gets instruction from David Royce, Foci’s Studio manager and a 7 year glass blower doing some fantastic things himself.

www.davidroyceglass.com

After you get the gather in somewhat the proper shape, you touch the hot glass to ground colored glass, reheat it, pick up more. This is where the colored patterns are built in. There can be multiple layers of colors and clear and many ways of adding color, shape and bubbles.

Here’s Michele using a shears to grab the hot bullet of glass to twist it to move the color around. You can also use sticks to drag designs into the color.

Then you gather more clear over the surface and use a hot wet pad to start to shape the molten glass. Now it’s more like throwing pots…just a lot harder. With pots, when you stop applying pressure, the clay stops moving. With glass, it keeps on slumping so it always has to be in motion. As you shape the glass you start to build a groove in the end where the punty is. This will become the cut off point. To do this a large tweezer like tool is used. (I’m sure there’s a fancy name for it, but I missed that.

Here, Michael is showing Ann how to do the shaping. And then it’s Alysa’s turn. Cool sunglasses, Alysa!

The final step, at the bench a drop of water was put in the groove which caused a shear line. At the table, Michael is helping betsy tap the punty which causes the shear line to break, freeing the piece of glass.
Michael then proceeded to give us a demonstration showing how thin you can blow glass (thinner than paper) and how thin you can pull it out (to a mere thread).
Next he made a large vase using the Swedish graal technique. You start blowing one vase, then start a second one, and fold the second over the first so there is a different pattern inside and out. Unfortunately we got so enthralled we forgot to take pictures. Bad potter.
After 4 hours of fascination with glass we had a wonderful late lunch at San Pedro’s in Hudson, WI., http://www.sanpedrocafe.com/ and then headed over to bother the folks at our second favorite gallery Season’s on the St. Croix. http://www.seasonsonstcroix.com/ ..
Now….don’t you wish YOU worked at Clay Coyote Gallery
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Filed Under: Potter's Life Tagged With: Cooking In Clay, david royce glass, foci glass, glass blowing, hot glass, micheal Boyd glass, seasons on the st croix

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Mail PO BOX 363, Hutchinson, MN 55350

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