So I've been lurking around Seebs et. al.'s blogs for like... 2-3 years now? I don't have a tumblr and don't want one, but I'm much more comfortable with forum things, so I'm jumping on this opportunity to interact with all you awesome people beyond just intermittent anon asks! I'm... not really sure what else to say here! I like fossils? And glass art? (you couldn't tell, right?) Why don't y'all ask me things so I have something to say about myself?
Ooph, that's a hard question. Onychophorans are awesome, I'm partial to Wiwaxia, naturally, Troodon and Microraptor and Falco peregrinus are all pretty awesome on the dinosaur front, any kind of echinoderm is great and Strongylocentrotus droebachiensis is really fuckin fun to say, chitons have fucking magnetite teeth... Nail polish is potentially pretty on other people. I've got a pretty strong "oh god things on skin" squick, so I'm not like to use it anytime soon. soulsucker: Me! I made that lovely little glass Wiwaxia over to your left. My mom's done some pretty cool glass stuff too. If we're done on the self-and-family aggrandizement front, Dale Chihuly is always great, but I'm gonna have to say Preston Singletary for overall favorite. e. here have some pictures of preston singletary's stuff Spoiler (This one is based on the myth of Raven stealing the sun, which is one of my all-time favorite myths)
Yeah, about 7 years ago now. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've gotten a chance to do lampworking. And thanks!
No, I got her into it, actually. There's a afterschool art program for middle-school kids in [CITY REDACTED] that partnered with a local fine arts center with a warmshop (glassworking with a table-mounted propane-oxygen torch vs. a hotshop which is where you do glassblowing) and offered lampworking classes. It was like 6 blocks from my middle school, so of course I jumped on that like a cat on a particularly juicy-looking laser dot.
I think it's clear and I'm just misparsing your phrasing but I want to stress that the pictures in the spoiler are very very very very very much not my work. :P I am nowhere near that level of skill. (and those are both blown glass/coldworked pieces anyways, not lampworked) It's not too difficult to get the basics down. Essentially, you're just taking a stick of colored glass and melting it in a torch (this takes a bit of practice to do, because if you just jam it right in the glass with thermal shock and shower you with hot glass shards (less than pleasant)) and then once you've got a nice blob of molten glass wrapping in around a steel rod dipped in clay (so the glass doesn't stick permanently to the clay). From there you've basically got a bead and you can shape it with tweezers and knives, etcetra or add more glass of different colors or frit or silver wire or whatever etcetera etcetera. It takes a bit longer to make things that actually look good, of course. You can also build glass shapes right on the end of a glass rod (called a punt) that you can later detach to get a free-standing glass shape without a hole through it, but I haven't done much of that. You usually use a slightly different kind of glass for that, too.
It is! If you ever get a chance, you should try it! Word of advice, though. Glass at several hundred degrees F looks exactly the same as glass at room temperature. Just because a piece of glass is not actively glowing orange or honey-consistency does not mean it is safe to pick up. Trust me, you do not want to learn this the hard way. XP
Okay I just parsed that wrong. Regardless of whether or not you made the above pieces, I am still super impressed and mildly jealous. I've been to the Corning Glass Museum and that was an incredible experience. Have you been to any glass museums? I'd recommend going if you get the chance.
Tacoma glass museum. They've actually got a hotshop there with an amphitheater around it and they invite glass artists there so you can come in and watch them work (they've also got a running program where they have kids draw things and then get visiting glass artists to make said things in glass in 3d) That's also where I first saw the Preston Singletary stuff in the spoiler up there. @Stophelping: I'm away from my glass art right now, but when I'm back near it again in a few months I could totally post some pictures (other than my avatar) if you'd like.
*^* Yeah, lampwork specifically is my dream goal (though more the beadwork end than the sculpting end). Cost of entry and Required Space are prohibitory at this time though :[[[[[[ (Though since you seem like an acceptable person to ask - I've seen a lot of back and forth about whether it's required to Do Annealing in a Kiln or if you can use the blankets/bucket of shit-I-forget-the-word cooling method. Your thoughts?) EDIT: AND YOU'RE A LOCAL I SEE
I can wait a few months. I look forward to seeing your art. The Corning museum has an amphitheater and regular glassblowing demonstrations, which was my favorite part of the whole trip.
@Starcrossedsky: Sorry, not got much for you there. I always did it in a kiln, because I was doing it through classes at a very well-appointed non-profit studio. I've actually not heard of the other method.
Curses! Was worth a shot though. Kilns/annealers are definitely the highest part of the cost of entry, by league of "costs more than everything else you need combined," so...
