Lesson 3

When the student is ready, the master appears.  ~Buddhist Proverb

Annette is definitely a master.  Let's just hope this student is ready.  Lesson 3 was frustrating for me.  I want to conquer the craft of glass blowing so I can start creating the pieces I am imagining, but realize how much I have to learn.  Patience has not always been my best virtue, but definitely something I am working on. 

During this lesson, we focused on efficient movement in the studio. Annette taught me different and better ways to move between the furnace, glory hole and bench and I practiced them over and over again under her watchful eye.  I think teachers think students get bored at this stage, and maybe some do, but this is my comfort zone.  I know what I need to accomplish, and no matter how simple the task, I will find a way to do it better every time.  I could do this all day.  My significant other, John, can often be overheard saying, "Don't let perfection be the enemy of done," more so to himself than me, but concept is not lost on me. Perfectionism (a gentle way of saying "anal retentivism") is an affliction we both suffer from, and I need to prevent it from building giant brick walls directly in my path.

With that in mind, I have only a few meager offerings from Lesson 3.  Most of my time was spent perfecting small portions of the process, leaving me with incomplete pieces that were sacrificed to the recycling bin.

This small vase was something I could make quickly while continuing to practice my marvering (working the glass off the end of the pipe) and jacking (in this case, shaping and opening the neck.)  The clear glass not only lets me better see what I'm doing, but also is beautiful in it's simplicity.  I love the elegant point at base of my bubble.

 


Perhaps the most exciting new trick I learned was how to use a steam stick.  The vase below started out looking like the vase above.  To widen the body, I placed a water-soaked wood cone just inside the lip of the molten vase until I sealed the opening.  The steam produced inside the vase forced it to blow up like a balloon, giving it a nice even round shape.  Rather than adding a bottle neck like you see above, I just left it like this.  This was really fun to do and it is so much easier to let the laws of physics govern my shapes than my imperfect hands.  



At the end of my lesson, Annette realized that I had not made a twisted glass rod.  These are used to make marbles or add accents to so many different pieces.  Imagine, if you can, shaping a gather into a cube at the end of a punty. Don't need a pipe for this because it is solid glass with no bubble. Color is then added to two opposing sides.  It's hard to tell here because the colors I chose were too close together, but there stripes are red and orange.  A layer of clear glass is then added to encase the color.  Here's the fun part.  Annette attached a punty to the other end of my cube, and we each began to spin our punties and walk apart.  Since it was my first time doing this, we only made it six or so feet, but we were left with this glass candy cane.  Below are just two of the sections.  I'm not sure what I'll use it for yet, but for now I am simply fascinated by it and play with it constantly on my desk.