Just a quick entry to show a few more successes.  Although most attempts end in relative (or absolute) failure, every once in a while the stars align and I produce something that’s pretty good.  Unfortunately, as my skill increases so do my standards.  The goblets below are not without their errors, but I won’t point them for now. 😉

The goblet on the right (see closer view) has a bowl with a mezzo-stampo and an optic ball / foot combination with an inner fold.  The stem is hot-pulled at the time the bowl and foot are joined.  I’m not such a big fan of this method as it is hard to get the stem the right length and straight.  I like the look though.

The left goblet is a three-part piece with a swan in the middle (see closer view).  The bowl and ball/foot are made and boxed.  The swan sits atop a clear marble with a wave base (swan close-up).  I need to work on wing symmetry but overall, it turned out nicer than I expected.

Onwards and upwards.

In the past few months I have been really trying to focus on fundamentals.  I met with Bill in March and again the first week of May.  He has been impressing on me the importance of the fundamentals… working fast and with purpose, not over-heating, opening vessels well to achieve thin lips, perfect mereses, and optic feet. The process, while tedious at the time, really has lead to a sense of comfort with the glass in any situation.  Bill always says that once you have the fundamentals down, everything else is easy.  I’m beginning to get a glimpse of what he means.

In the process of practicing, I am building up an inventory of feet and bowls.  So, I decided to work on joining them with a “critter” in-between.  I have tried a few swans, but what I am really after are dragons.  The result is shown below… my first dragon-stem goblet!  Yea!

This goblet (known as a three-part goblet) was constructed by pre-heating a bowl that I had made earlier.  I then made a knop/merese/foot and boxed it as well.  Finally I constructed the dragon, first on the blow-pipe and then on a punty.  To construct the goblet, I picked up the bowl, re-puntied inside the bowl, and then picked up the foot.  I was so excited that I had a complete goblet that I didn’t want to spend time straightening the parts (therefore the goblet has a slight front-to-back lean).  Oh well!

I really need to work on my dragons… I made a snout and crest but he really needs some wings and spines on the front and back.  I am patterning him after one in the CMOG collection.  On further reflection, perhaps this is more of a worm-stem goblet.  Regardless, it’s a step forward!

Extra Stuff…

As a (very) late Christmas present, I made my sister a lamp.  This was perhaps the largest piece I have ever blown (4 gathers!).  Compared to the extremely light work that I am used to, this was quite a challenge, both because it was very heavy and because it gave off a tremendous amount of heat.  I started with a small nodule of emerald green so that the finished piece has a very light green hue… almost like the color that iron impurity gives old glass.  The top has a turned walnut cap that holds the lamp socket.  Shipping to California was certainly a challenge but it made it there in one piece.  Yea!

No philosophical ramblings on this entry (sorry).  I just wanted to quickly post some thoughts on my latest piece.
 
On this piece, I decided to add several skills that I have been working on and ultimately want to master.  Both bowl and foot are optics and both have colored lip-wraps.  First off, I’m not sure the best way to twist the optic for the foot.  Bill does it after touching the foot down on the merese, but I don’t get a good twist that way.  Instead, I do the twist when forming the foot.  It takes a bit more time so I’d like to figure out a more elegant way of doing it.  Secondly, my lip wraps are not that good because it seems that I can’t get the glass at the end hot enough (note to self.. I wonder if I had less glass at the tip).  Still, these were fairly successful.

Another new addition are the side decorations.  I really want to add these types of decorations on a regular basis.  The key of course is keeping them hot long enough to work with them.  The problem of course is that thin and delicate also means “cools very fast”!  I suspect that it’s just a matter of perfecting the moves needed to shape the decoration with minimal time actually touching it. 

For this trial I tried doing the stem first and then boxing it.  This creates several problems.  First, the stem has a sharp break when you knock it off into the box.  After assembly, its not a very nice joint.  Secondly, I think that it is much harder to assemble a bowl to the stem, especially if the bowl is wide.  I’m lucky that this even worked.  I had a terrible time doing the final assembly.  The result is a crooked bowl. 🙁

Finally, I sure would like to be able to make the tazza shape.  I know they say that it’s the hardest shape to make but for some reason the shape inspires me.  Here’s a nice picture of one… nice don’t you think?

** On a final note, I must mention that this piece is very light (almost freakishly so).  It’s strange to pick it up because you are expecting it to be much heavier.  I think that having a thin stem helps in this respect (that’s where I think a lot of the weight comes from).

The light at the end of a tunnel?  Perhaps.  As you might have noticed, it has been a long time since I felt that I had anything to show.  Fact is, I’ve put thousands of pieces in the scrap/recycle bucket over the last 6 months.  Just when a thought that I have solved one problem, another one cropped up.  I became so focused on these problems that I really hit a sort of frustrated writer’s block (blower’s block if you will).  During the fall, I was so disheartened that I completely lost the desire to come in and blow at all.  I had lost my sense of purpose in the studio.  I needed a change.

In November and December I decided to abandon BYB altogether and focus on other projects.  Namely, I made a series of gifts such as thin floppy bowls, ornaments, and paperweights.  I found that by going back to these simple objects, I really have developed a command of the glass that I hadn’t noticed before (they really were simple… which is weird because I still remember when they were hard).  This process gave me the encouragement to begin to try some thin tumblers again.  I started with the “blown sphere” method and worked my way back to blow-yank-blow.  I found that the best way to do BYB is to not start the neck prior to blowing.  I know that this may cause me some problems down the road but I’ve not encountered any as of yet, so I’ll let it go.  I may revisit this issue later, but for now I’m happy to work a bit harder on the jack-line at the end of the pull.  I think that I have to just let the technique take care of itself and focus on the “feel” of the glass.  I feel like I am making really excellent roman feet as well.

This last week I returned to goblet making for the first time in a long time.  Blowing solo, I focused on 2-part goblets (cup first).  I was pleasantly surprised that I was very successful (see below).  Through this whole frustrating process I must have gained some new sense about the glass.  I must admit that it is very strange.  I feel like I have reached a new plateau… the light at the end of this tunnel.  I hope that I can stay at this level for a while and enjoy the sunshine.

The goblet above was made on January 16, 2013.  Here’s a full version of the image.  Cup and merese were made first and boxed at (1050F).  Stem is green with clear, optic, and then pulled.  Merese is added and then blown foot with folded lip.  Stem is puntied and a glue bit added to which the cup is added.  Would like to find a better assembly process for solo work but will have to go with this at the moment.

Update: Here are a few more goblets that I made a few days after I wrote this entry.  (goblet with fuchsia stem; with a copper-ruby stem)

Again, I don’t have much to say except that I am continuing to work on my optic and non-optic b-y-b.  I must say that I find the process extremely frustrating at times. One session it seems that I have the technique down only to be completely at a loss during the next.  Perhaps this is simply the process of moving forward.  When starting out, you think that you only have to memorize a process as written down or demonstrated for you.  However, I think that there is more to it than that.  The deviations which result in disaster can be so small that I think a bigger awareness of the glass is needed (in addition to the process).  You have to be able to not only perform the proscribed steps to a high degree of precision, but you need to be aware of how the glass is behaving in order to make slight course corrections (heating a bit longer, etc.) along the way.  So in short… I’ll carry on.

Below is a solo goblet that I made all on the pipe.  This was an interesting exercise in proper flashing.  Otherwise, over the course of the piece you can lose significant amounts of heat in key areas (such as the neck).  I also have been working on some optic tumblers.

Just a short update at this point.  Although I had my “bicycle moment” a few months ago with the blow-yank-blow (BYB) technique, there were still many adjustments to be made (to be honest, I’m not sure that I have discovered and made them all, even now).  The last two months have been filled with many “ah-ha” moments only to be followed by frustrating periods of not being to duplicate my previous success.  I have learned that it is critically important that every step in the process be done precisely.  Unfortunately, I would tend to focus on one step at the neglect of another — thus causing problems at some point later in the process.  The other thing that I am guilty of is “over-doing” a step with the reasoning that if a little of one thing was good, then more would be better.

I might (fingers crossed) be getting on track with my consistency.  Last night I completed 10 BYB’s in a row, successfully — success means a good pull, with a neck that stays in place and at trimmed tail.  The result should have a sausage-like shape with uniform tapers fore and aft (Note to self: take a picture of a “success”).  Hopefully this continues and the BYB can become second-nature as I focus on other techniques.

In addition to just the BYB , I have been trying to work through entire pieces.  See the image above.  This is a clear BYB tumbler with merese and blown foot (all solo).  I have been working on my mereses every time I blow.  It is a good exercise to stack 5 or so on a punty while the GH is warming up.  Generally I can get through 3-4 punties worth before I’m ready to start blowing.  Here is a close-up of the merese.  One issue that I am going to need to work out is that my mereses are rounded, not sharp. It is all in how you shape the edge, but I haven’t got it quit right.  My solo blow feet are coming along too.  I don’t lose one very often these days.  I am more focused on getting the shape (too bell-shaped) and size (too large) under control (close-up of the merese and foot).

Finally, notice that the sides of the vessel are straight. This is what I am usually striving for, but getting the sides straight and the lip thin are not easy tasks.  Furthermore they are hard to practice because you need a nearly finished vessel each time.  All in good time I suppose.

Do you remember long ago (longer for some of us than others), the moment that you learned to ride a bike?  It usually goes something like this… At some point you decide that training wheels are just not going to cut it any longer.  However, having removed them, you wonder why they are even called “training wheels” because you find that you are not suitably “trained” to ride solo.   Instead, you needed a parent to run along beside you, with a hand on the back of the seat, smoothing out the lapses in balance.  What followed was a time of general frustration accompanied by crashes of varying severity as you tried to figure out something that should be oh-so-simple.  But… there was that moment, where you looked back and saw that your guardian parent was no longer holding on to your seat.  You realized that you were doing it… you had learned to ride a bike.  This is what happened to me last Wednesday.  Let me explain…

The blow-yank-blow

I believe that it would not be a stretch to say that Bill Gudenrath is recognized as one of the preeminent American Venetian-style glassblowers working today.  (I must also mention that Bill is also a consummate teacher who is entirely gracious and unassuming — rarities I think, given his level of skill.)  In September, Bill visited Penn State for the weekend.  The visit began with a lecture in the Palmer Museum on Friday afternoon, continued with a full day of demo’s on Saturday, and wrapping up with a dinner at my house for all of the glassblowers.  It was a fun (and instructive) time had by all.  What I came away with from that weekend was the need to really refine the blow-yank-blow… Bill’s general process for creating all thin-walled, tall-form vessels.  Here is his description of the non-optic b-y-b.

So, during the months of October and November, I worked exclusively on the blow-yank-blow.  In addition, I also added a roman foot and lip wrap to each tumbler that I made (just to make the most out of each piece that made it to the opening stage).  I should also note that I started to use Bill’s style of punty which I must say is perhaps the best punty that I have ever used… ever!  Below are three tumblers from this span of work.

Despite these successes, the b-y-b just didn’t look like Bill doing it… here’s an example (looks easy doesn’t it?).  Instead of getting a long balloon shaped vessel, Carlo and I often produced a tear-drop which then had to be expanded (making for an overly thin bottom).  Furthermore, I was consistently producing a thick-ish ring of glass two-thirds of the way down the vessel.  Although it didn’t seem to affect the blowing process, it did disturb the look of the piece (unless it was hidden in the foot).  By the beginning of December, I really felt that I had gone as far as I could go without some direction.  Fortunately, Carlo and I were able to spend a Saturday in Corning working alongside Bill, who was able to critique my techniques and add some suggestions.  Still, I must say that while at Corning, I had no epiphanies while practicing the techniques suggested by Bill.

That brings me to last Wednesday night.  I should mention that the whole process isn’t just following the steps outlined in the b-y-b (although it is crucial to do so to the letter).  What is not described in the recipe are the subtle nuances that go with each step… the length and angle of marvering, the right amount of reheating, the length of time for setting up the bubble, and finally, the pulling process (how much, when, etc.).  In all of these areas, there are subtle corrections that make a big difference in the final process… even whether or not the whole process works at all.  I am trying to dial in all of these variables while at the same time working to develop a “feel” for each step. 

So, I’m about 5-6 pieces in… some were too cold, some not the right shape, others not set up correctly.  At least I am beginning to see the mistakes, even if I can’t yet avoid making them.  All of a sudden, everything seems to fall into place and the technique works (like hot melted butter it works!).  Excited, I try another one… it works too!  Sure there are even finer corrections that I see need to be made, but I am doing the blow-yank-blow.  This was my “bicycle” experience because one moment it’s not quite working and the next it is.  It was quite literally a quantum jump (no in-between).  I was so excited that I didn’t really want to go home that night because I was afraid that I would lose the magic.  Hopefully, the next time that I am in the studio, the magic will return and I will get on my bike and ride away!

Note: I should also point out that all of these very basic techniques don’t lend themselves to pictures.  I’m not really “making” anything (except glass bubbles, with the occasional completed tumbler).  Even the tumblers look pretty much like the tumblers that I was making a year ago.  However, if you look very closely you can see (and feel) the difference.  I find that I’ve become very picky… I want absolutely straight sides, no aberrations due to thickness changes, and perfectly flat rims.   I have been assured that these exercises will make me better at working the glass so that when I do finally get around to making things, I can focus more on artistic expression that dealing with problems that arise from lack of skill.

So here it is the end of summer and I’m not sure what I have to show for it.  It seems that I have spent the last few months struggling forward towards what I know is the next plateau – only, I have no idea what that plateau is or how long it will take to get there.  After being generally uninspired with common vessel blowing, I have once again returned to the goblet.  Perhaps this is simply a skill yet to be concurred, but I just love goblets.  I love looking at them, love watching them being made, love making them… well you get the idea.  I want to make them with fancy details, swans stems, dolphin stems, dragon stems, tazzas, cane pick-up, reticello… you name it.  And while I don’t dream about them (often), when I doodle, I draw goblets.  Obsessed? …perhaps.

The first thing that I need to accomplish however is a reliable method of goblet construction.  My past entries have detailed some of the past trials.  In the latest attempts I have made the bowl with avolio and then garaged it.  Next come the stem, avolio, and foot.  Finally, a glue-bit is applied and the bowl is brought out of the garage and attached to the stem.  The first successful attempt of this method is shown below (there were several “floor models” that are not shown).

Of course, the timing of the whole “glue-bit, bring out the bowl, attach, center, flash” process needs refining.  Namely, I feel at this point the stem/foot need to be flashed after the glue bit is applied so that I have time to attach and center the bowl.  Perhaps this can be done with only the torch… or not at all.  The problem of course is that the glue bit hardens and creates a “globby” connection.  In the future I need to use less glass for the bit and consider methods for hiding the connection (like a frilly wrap).

I should also mention for posterity that I am spending many blow slots just making bowls using the blow-pull-blow method.  I liken it to doing scales on a musical instrument – the same thing over and over, not “making” anything, just making the process a deeply ingrained habit.  My goal is to not only be able to manipulate very thin glass, but to actually feel comfortable and in control doing it.  Right now, I can get nice shapes, but it’s kind of a “get what you get” approach.  I really want to be able to dictate the type of shape, the precise height and width, and have everything on center (I’m getting really picky these days) every time.   During the last few blow slots, I have had an occasional piece where the heat must have been just right because the glass behaves beautifully.  In such cases, I can get the bubble twisted, blown, pulled, reinflated with some top shaping, and the jackline all off of the first heat.  When it happens, everything is so comfortable and it feels like I have total command of the glass – it gives me hope.

Lastly, I’ve been playing with solid sculpting.  I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing but I have been making crude torsos, sea-horses, fish etc.  They are recognizable as such but I think that I’m going to need to an “Introduction to Solid Sculpting” class somewhere.  Anyway, here’s a fish that I made a few weeks ago.

Although it’s been over a month since I returned, I wanted to report on my first week-long course at The Studio in Corning.  The class was titled, Tricks and Techniques by David McDermott.   David has been blowing glass for 38 years (wow!) – much of that time spent in what I will call “production” glass blowing at Pairpoint Glass Co.  With this background, David works very hot and very fast, with focus on economy of motion and heat.  Of course, being schooled in a more slow and deliberate style (what David calls the Italian style), this class really pushed my glass-blowing boundaries.  I’m not sure that I’ve even fully unpacked what I learned in the class at this point.  I think that the main take-away from the class is the addition of these techniques to my tool box.  I’m not sure that they are ideal for making every piece, nor do I think that I will adopt all of them into my regular routine.  However, seeing glass worked much hotter and faster has inspired me to push myself in that direction, particularly with multi-gather pieces.  If you want to learn more about David McDermott check out his website:  http://www.mcdermottglass.com/

Here are a few other quick thoughts about my week-long class:

• The Studio at Corning is a first-rate operation.  Everything from the accommodations, to special lectures, to the studio itself was excellent… certainly worth the cost of the course. Apart from the actual course, I especially enjoyed the Museum tour with Bill Gudenrath (man, that guys knows everything there is to know about historical glass) and the Photographing Glass lecture.
• I wasn’t prepared for the density of glass-blowing information that the week-long course would bring.  I found that my bucket was full after only a few days.  We would generally have couple of demos followed by a chance or two to practice before moving on.   I would have liked to take a technique and practice it for a day or two before moving on to another technique, etc (I’m just slow I guess).   The thing that saved me is that I made a complete video record of every demo.  I plan to go back through the course at a slower pace over the next few months.

• I found all of the participants in both classes (mine and the one running simultaneously) to be very interesting.  One of the things that I discovered is that I am very blessed in my access to blowing facilities.  Many of my fellow classmates either had jobs in glass production shops – getting to blow on their own only on breaks – or had to rent time / take classes just to be able to blow.  That said, after 8 hours in the Studio I was physically done for the day.  Others, particularly my roommate, blew every chance that they had from 8 in the morning until 11 pm!  (I think that he even skipped dinner on occasion… Yikes!)  I suppose if that was my only chance to blow for a month or two I would have pushed myself, but I kept thinking, “I can’t wait to get back to the peace and quiet of my own studio where I can sort out some of these techniques on my own.”  (see below)

• Although I tend to look down on our small studio space, I discovered that I really enjoy the peaceful atmosphere that our shop has due to only having one bench.  During this class, we had three benches going (with 8 people), assistants dodging and weaving with hot bits, people waiting to hop on to a free bench, etc.  I found the environment a bit too chaotic to really analyze and prefect the new techniques.

This post is becoming a bit longer that I wanted, so let me finish up by just recording what we did over the week.  We started with tumblers, and to give you an idea of why tumblers, let me just outline the ideal procedure….  Gather and block (no marvering!).  Then blow the bubble and let it “run” (stretch).  Cut in a jack line (not much) and let it run again.  Blow to inflate the bottom of the glass.  Flash (this was the 1st heat!).  Now shape the bottom of the glass and flatten the bottom.  Flash/punty (you should see how these are taken off the pipe… yikes!).  Now the top is opened in two heats… done!  You can see how fast these pieces are made.  It’s all about “heat, speed, and angle” (David’s saying).  In the Paul Revere bowl below, the top is opened without any tools – just by heating, spinning and angling (pretty cool actually).

I wanted to post just a quick description of a piece that I made this week.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while.  I was inspired by this video on YouTube (see 1:53).  I wanted to create a vessel that had a cane body with solid white neck and foot.  Check out my initial attempt below…

I started with making a white cylinder (closed on one end… basically a long color-cup) for the neck and garaging it.  I’m not sure about making encalmo parts ahead of time.  It seemed to work, but I found it difficult to anticipate what size cup to make, not knowing exactly what my body would look like.  Perhaps more careful planning/drawing (to scale) is needed.  Next, I picked up the cane for the body (no problems there).  After another 1-1/2 gathers, I added a white dropped foot and added a black lip-wrap.  One thing that I found disappointing was that the white reduced dramatically when hit with a torch, leave me with a muddy brown film on the surface of the foot.  I was using an Enamel White (soft… R-610) powder.  I’m going to have to try a different color or encase the white first.  Ideally I want a blown foot here, but I was a bit chicken on my first attempt.  I thought that a blown foot might be too much to manage.

After puntying and shaping the top, my assistant brought over the garaged neck.  As I said previous, I had a bit of a problem with getting the sizes to match.  I’m not sure whether you need you join the two bubbles at the seam, like a traditional encalmo, or simply put the neck over-top of a smaller opening on the body.  It would seem like the latter would give you a better dividing line between body and neck.  I also note that I left the lip of the white color-cup a bit too thin.  This gave me problems with the base of the neck — not only was the neck too wide, but it got away from me a bit.  To make matters worse, I used the same white powder, which didn’t react well to a hand torch (even after reheating in the GH, the white never recovered) — Grrrr!

All in all I was pleased with the result… Room for improvement, yes, but I got a fairly complicated piece in the box and I felt relaxed and in-control throughout the process.  I think that I need to practice the encalmo a bit more, perhaps with solid colors (save the cane work for when I have the process down).  This week I’m off to Corning for my first week-long class.  I will make a post or two when I return.

PS… I finally set up a little photo studio in my basement.  I hope that picture will be a bit more professional from here on out.   🙂

PS#2… Check out some “action shots” (GH and at the bench).