New Jersey Vacation Glass Division

Glass on this trip has 3 aspects - inside the Wheaton Village blowing facility, inside the Glass Museum and glass at some historic sites.

WheatonArts and Cultural Center [formerly Wheaton Village] is the site of a former glass factory which now houses a demonstration facility, the Creative Glass Fellowship Program, and the Museum of American Glass. 2007-05-31

This is a panoramic view made up from 3 images to span the width of the factory building with the old brick furnace. The glass being melted is in a modern unit inside the brick shell. Good seating, a bit hot, but then the day was hot for NJ. Three gaffing stations. The cold shop is center back. The people are not actually watching what is shown to right - the gaffer in the demo was at the bench down center and the guy in the white shirt was narrating - it is just that this is a better center image to show the space.. The guest artist shown below is working up center. Larger image of center

This is the kind of thing that was being worked on. If you look carefully, you can see the fingers on the handle at the rear	.
Shot down the cold working space, large machines. Center back of panorama above.
Shot of one of the cold working areas
Garage for artist worker, behind his bench along with many tanks.. Panorama above was taken from top left corner of this shot.
Team arrangement. If my notes are correct, then the man standing is Rick Mills and the gaffer is Dave Walters. The lean young lady is one of the assistants.
This is the teapot he is making, note the fingers and thumb on the handle. The white is both a color bar and white powder, the gathered glass is clear.
A shot across the blowing floor. The gal standing and the one sitting working to the right are assistants. The guy in white in the back is a demonstrator. Note there is propane, oxygen, and acetylene on hand.
Here an oxy-acetylene torch is being used to locally heat a spot to be pierced so the spout can be attached and be a working spout.
Here the steel probe is working the hole made above.
Later in the day, I came back for a further look and he was working this shape.

The Glass museum is a somewhat odd building, looking like old shuttered 12 over 12 windows made grotesquely large - from just under the eaves to the ground. I took no pictures outside. Inside the shape is a square donut around a court with a lot of glass from pretty old to Chihuly and Josh Simpson. Every fellow must donate one piece and all the examples are shown, good, bad, exciting and dull. In the museum are examples of virtually every kind of glass that I have seen in the various books. Many different display modes were used such as this layout of production pieces.
I had not encountered this mold - thick ribs spaced out with smooth areas in between. Really liked the effect, shown here in a vase with a twisted top.
There is the same type of mold made into a pitcher.
And similar again as the base of a decanter.
Interesting to me for the slight variation and different visual impact.
Here production mold blown bottles are displayed on glass shelves in a case that runs away from a window. Pieces were also shown in the windows, and ...
In cases along the walls and partitions.
This piece I have seen in pictures, but until I had seen it in person, I did not realize that while it has 16 chambers, the chambers do not all go into the middle - it actually built around a central bubble which is (somewhat) easier as the multiple outside bubbles do not have to come together evenly in the middle. Still an astounding feat.

These four pictures were taken at the Washington's Headquarters in Ford mansion, because I liked the shape of the window and
Blown (or rolled) distortions in the glass. I have
no idea whether this glass is truly as old as the house and I failed to ask the guide, [a later e-mail determined that it is an modern replacement and they are planning on replacing it because it is too exaggerated compared to actual glass.]
but it looked neat and the pictures came out ok.

New Jersey Vacation - Glass Page

New Jersey Vacation -
Glass Page