No offense intended with today's lesson from the craft room! Last night I had an amazing experience!!!!! My friend Elizabeth and I have created a bit of a tradition. To celebrate our respective birthdays we go on a creative adventure! For one birthday it was a painting class. For another, a glass fusing excursion. And last night, in celebration of both of our belated birthdays, we took on glassblowing!!!!!! Wow! What an experience!!!!! We went to a studio here in Denver called Agnes of Glass. We both purchased Groupons and hoped for the best! We weren't disappointed. I think one of the things that stuck with me the most was when Agnes started talking about how the tension we hold in our bodies will actually make their way into the glass. If we are tense and uptight, our piece will be off-balance. It seems to me that this is true about so many things - the energy we bring to something is the energy that we give to that thing. I'm not saying that that is a bad thing - actually, I think it is what makes art and creativity so powerful - it gives us an opportunity to outwardly express that which is inside of us. I learned so much from this experience that took us less than 3 hours. Lessons about myself and how I approach something new. Lessons about how we can give to one another - it really did take a village to create each glass tumbler. There were 4 of us in the class, along with Agnes and two assistants. When one of us was working on our piece the others were encouraging us, or blowing the tube to put air into our glass, or helping to transfer our glass from one place to another, or heating our glass in the glory hole (the hotter than heck furnace where the glass gets heated and reheated so that the piece becomes hot enough to "work"). I also learned once again that the creative process is a journey that I need - a journey that brings me closer to myself and others. My advice to you? Go blow!!!!!! :)
The "marble" that you are seeing above is a piece of glass that gets clipped off of the end of the glass after colored glass has been added and melted into the clear glass. In order to create a "twist" in the colors of the glass, the end of the molten glass is clipped off as you are simultaneously turning the pole on which the glass is adhered. (I know I'm not using the technical terms that likely describe this entire process - looks like I might need to go back and learn more!). We won't see our finished pieces for a week. They needed to cool and then the bottoms will be ground slightly so that the glasses sit level. I'll be sure to share the finished piece when I get it back. In the meantime, this is a "tease" of what it might look like! :)
1 comment:
It sounds like you had a wonderful and fun experience. We did a little glassblowing ourselves recently but our student instructor was a little too eager to rush through the process and I was disappointed that there wasn't more "hands-on". We made pumpkins and we love them. I love your marble. Can't wait to see your finished product.
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