Return to Sitemap
Contact Mike Firth
Last Rev.
2010-12-31
Home Page: start.htm
Jump over Table of Contents
Learning about Glass (Frames)
Like other online issues of HGB, this one is in reverse date order (for online reading of the newest stuff at the top.)
Glass Art Society 41st Annual Conference Tucson, Arizona, April 7-9, 2011 Viva el Vidrio |
GlassWeekend '11 June 10-12, 2011 WheatonArts, Millville NJ |
Receive email when this page changes
|
GLASS VIDEOS - Courtesy of comments on
CraftWeb Glass Forum
we get this
video of "Sai Asahara, 4th generation of Asahara Glass factory" making a
large glass float alone. I would like to point to the video as offering several
examples of meeting special needs with special tools and techniques. The
large parison is shaped and cooled in an angled mold that is probably iron
because it does not spark. In the dark video you can see the gaffer bend to
inflate the piece and though it isn't obvious here, he is thinning the glass on
the sides and thickening it on the bottom. It is then moved to a nearby
support bar and gravity and angle and rotation are used to make a flattened disk
that is moderately inflated near the end at that position. When moved to wood
mold (notice the flame and sparks) and inflated to size; the mold is at exactly
the right height for this gaffer. There is an assistant who comes in and checks
the first mold, probably for broken bits of mold paste. The float when inflated is supported on a bar while cooling as observed by any movement of the piece. The gaffer takes it to a white ceramic blanket support; files (I believe) the neck and snaps it off, then goes and gets a gather (although the assistant might have brought it) and lays down two cookies - small and large and applies them (note the gloves, same guy.) As the CraftWeb discussion points out, the small cookie laid down first is cooler and blocks the hole while the larger backs it up and provides material for the sealing with the wood (and perhaps cork) pad - there will be a vacuum inside the float when it cools. Then a special tool is pulled from the huge annealer to pick up the float and position it well back in the space - the tool is preheated to keep it from cracking the glass. So the special tools include two types off molds, two support bars with space behind them, large break off support pad, special wood pad, special tool to move the float, and special annealer. Whenever looking at a glass video, take a look at the suggestions YouTube makes on the side. A trick I use is to click on the link with the control key held down so it opens in a new tab - otherwise the original list get pushed off. And if you ever wandered down a beach and felt a moderate thrill when you found a glass float of more moderate size, then what do you feel with this video where a guy in Alaska shows dozens if not hundreds scattered a beach and digs out some two dozen in a space about two feet on a side? Note the website at the start still has him in business. 2010-12-31 |
CHRISTMAS - And to wish you all a Merry Christmas and the best of all the holidays and the New Year. Notes |
CHRISTMAS CRAFT SALES - I have gotten a lot of notices from various glass places around the country for sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Locally, the annual Randy Brodnax and Friends, Christmas Art Sale will be held Dec. 10-12, Friday evening, and days on Sat/Sun, at Sons of Hermann Hall, 3414 Elm St., Dallas, and will include a variety of crafts including Jim Bowman's glass. Other crafts dominating include pottery, fabric, and jewelry with some pretty good wood carving some years. The Hall is just where Elm and other streets take a sharp bend to connect to Fair Park. 2010-12-04 |
GLASS VIDEOS - Nice glass film from 1958 showing Dutch manual, good hand and body shots, and mechanical blowing of glass with nice music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLS7--ZLCoI referenced from CraftWeb Glass Forum http://talk.craftweb.com which has a bunch of experienced furnace glass workers. from the same source multiple glass videos are here http://www.glassblowingtv.com/ 2010-12-03 |
CARLYN GALERIE II - "A GALERIE OF GLASS"
OCTOBER 21 to November 7 Participating Artists include: Terry Andrews FL, Lean Applebaum NY, Boar Glass NC, Dottie Boscamp CO, Ed Edwards AL, Fields & Fields OR, Keith Gabor OR, Donna Gordon CO, Elodie Holmes NM, Tim Lazer CA, Jennifer Nauck CO, Nicholson Glass CA, Karen Pester CA, Tom Philabaum AZ, Vera Sattler FL, Matt Seasholtz VT, David Thai CAN, Tsunami Glass CAN, Thomas Kelley NY |
CARLYN GALERIE - has been a long time supporter of artist quality glass in the Dallas area. From the opening reception Sept. 16 thru October 10, they are featuring "Autumn Jewels" with all kinds of jewelry, including glass, silver, gold filled, pearls and mixed metals. 6137 Luther Lane near Preston and NW Highway www.carlyngalerie.com Part of the sales will be donated to CERF 2010-09-11 |
CERF - the Craft Emergency Relief Fund http://craftemergency.org/ is a non-profit organization that has a considerable history of helping craft artists recover from disasters like flooding and fire, hurricanes and other storms. Many artists donate to it and this time of year an effort is made to build up the fund with galleries contributing a part of sales. 2010-09-11 |
RECENT CHANGES - I spent some time making minor changes to fiction books in a glass world and the bibliography and well as adding some images to warm glass and bottle pages. Suggestions are welcome. Use the last date in the the listing at the top to find changes. Also, calling up i-update.htm at any time will list files in reverse date order, although I must manually trigger making the list. 2010-09-01 |
CHICAGO GLASS STUDIOS - I will be going to the Chicago area in mid-September for my 50th high school class reunion in Crystal Lake and expect to visit some of the area glass studios. I would like to post a map of the ones I have found but FrontLine crashes when I put in the link in this file. Chicago Glass Studios Happy to know of more 2010-08-26 |
VETRO 2NDS AND HOT - As I post this there are only 3 days left in the Seconds sale (thru the 28th) at Vetro Glassblowing Studio and Gallery (701 S. Main St., #103, Grapevine TX 76051, 817.251.1668 www.VetroArtGlass.com ) but they are going hot after August being down for maintenance and are aiming for Grapefest (yes they do grow grapes near Grapevine) in mid-September. 2010-08-26 |
BRONZE MOLDS & NUGGETS - Olympic Color Rods, which sends out regular announcements has a notice of new bronze molds in 4" optic in 3 point counts (12, 14, & 16) and 4", 6", 8" and 10" pineapple molds. The optic molds are $175 each and the others $225 to $900 plus what I expect are healthy shipping charges for this heavy material. Most molds sold today are aluminum. They also announce that they are distributing Spectrum Nuggets (glass cullet) from more locations, now in WA, CA (mid & south), AZ, CO, TX, IA, MO, OH, KY, NJ, & GA. 818 John St., Seattle WA 98109, 206-343-7336, 800-445-7742 2010-08-26 |
CALIENTE HOT GLASS STUDIO, TX - www.calientehotglass.com Ralph Laborde 210-313-3254 "We are a Studio Club. Our group was blowing glass @ Dragonfire, here in San Antoino. Dragonfire closed in September of 2009. Caliente Hot Glass is a small studio on San Antonio's eastside with 12 members that blow on a regular basis." 2010-08-16 |
BACK OFF THE JOB - After 4 months working for the Census 2010, I have returned to working at home as it tapers down to final work and other tasks including this website intrude. Maybe I will handle incoming notices better. Just for the heck of it I will mention another Y!A item, glass display dresses by Diana Dias-Leão which are made of fused glass fragments with other materials. image link I expect to go to the Chicago area in mid-September for my high school 50th reunion and will look around at studios, etc. 2010-08-08 |
REFLECT 2010 the London Glass Fair this Sunday 13th June 2010 came up in a discussion on Yahoo!Answers. I did a search to find http://www.reflectlondon.com/ and looked at some of the artist links. I would hope the show attracts enough people, although it is kind of an odd mix of artists and people selling current and older production glass. If nothing else, the exhibitors/artists links can give a view of some people doing glass who can do the show. 2010-06-09 |
TOO BUSY - I have not been doing a good job of keeping up with this and information sent me, but then I haven't been doing much but wearing myself out doing an office job with the 2010 Census. The good news is that the money has helped pay off our mortgage. The poor news is that it has been very tiring with a really slow computer system. More 2010-05-30 |
Get Registered for GAS 2010 in Louisville! by
April 7 (this Wed) to get early discount. GAS 2010 40th Annual Conference, June 10-12, 2010, Louisville Downtown Marriott Hotel, info@GASLouisville2010.org for more information, http://www.glassart.org/2010_louisville.html From the email this was a part of, it appears that Louisville is going all out to finish the school year and start summer with a huge number of things connect to glass. Register for the 2010 Conference NOW at the main Glass Art Society Web site View the Pre-conference Brochure. |
GLASS GALLERY DALLAS - Kittrell-Riffkind Art
Glass here in Dallas sends "We're stepping into spring with the first of
our Featured Artist Series for this year, showcasing new work from some of
our favorite artists. Featured will be Jonathan Fischbach, Dinah Ihle,
Michael Nourot & Ann Corcoran, Jennifer Umphress, and jewelry maker
Elizabeth Johnson. The opening reception will be this coming Saturday, March 13th from 1:00 - 5:30pm. We hope you will join us and meet Michael & Ann, who will be visiting us from California. Johathan will also be here giving an opportunity to see lampworking techniques demonstrated Come meet these talented artists, see their work, and find out what makes them tick! The exhibit will continue through April 10th. Photos of some of the featured work is up on our website " http://www.kittrellriffkind.com/ |
GLASS QUARTERLY 118 - The Spring 2010 issue of UrbanGlass's art glass quarterly, www.glassquarterly.com, features clear glass with Beth Limpman's "Icy Still Lives" on the cover for an article reviewing works over several years that pile up distorted clear glass versions of items seen in old still life paintings - fruit, flowers, vases, stands, bottles. The author ties it to commentary on social excess before the economic bubble burst. William Warmus, previous editor of the journal, writes on "aesthetic lessons from below the surface" learned while skin diving where he compares being in the water to being inside glass - the most striking image of this shows a skin diving photographer in blue-green water with a swimming elephant. And a commercial design article turns out to be the most striking to my mind - a firm called Fred and Friends http://www.worldwidefred.com/home.htm among other useful but quirky products make clear glass items out of borosilicate. Examples given in the article include Hopside Down in which the shape of the neck and shoulders of a beer bottle is inverted inside the shape of a pilsner glass with space between them, http://www.worldwidefred.com/hopsidedown.htm , a wine glass shape inside a beer mug form, a cow's udder shape inside a pitcher form, and the tail of a bomb in a glass - Bombs Away. The company is not just doing glass, many of the items on the website are plastic. The reviews in the back of the issue also feature clear glass. 2010-03-06 |
METAL GOBLET STEMS - After examining my pages to answer an email, I found I needed to revise some pages to better detail what I had learned while working on blowing glass into metal bases to make goblet forms. A new page isolates the limited material on forging take from the considerably expanded page on metal stems which draws in and expands on images and material from some pages and links to others. A slightly revised metal center page still acts as a pivot for various metal working pages. 2010-03-06 |
GAS 2010 - 40th Annual Conference, June 10-12, 2010,
Louisville Downtown Marriott Hotel,
info@GASLouisville2010.org
Special Glass Collector's Tour, June 9 - June 12, 2010 "Tour Louisville's
most unique glass art locations including renowned private collections.
Visit artist studios and experience private artist demos. Attend an
exclusive event at the Speed Art Museum. For information about this 4-day
exclusive tour during the 40th annual Glass Art Society meeting,
click here. To make a reservation,
click here." "Take a virtual visit to Glassworks and Flame Run and have lunch at the Mayan Café in this video that will entice your eyes and stomachs for GAS 2010." Click here to view the pre-conference brochure. My GAS notes. 2010-02-22 |
TECHNIQUE NOTES - While visiting the always informative Craft Web Glass Forum I was directed to a couple of videos which had such good examples of technique details that I grabbed some images and added them to my Glass Techniques page. 2010-02-20 |
CLASSES IN WESTERN MA - Snow Farm, "The New England Craft Program" has announced their 2010 Weekend Intensives and Week Long Art In Depth and while the latter is pretty skimpy in glassblowing (2 sessions) and the former is mostly beginner (5) and intermediate (2) there is one possible spectacular gem on July 30-Aug 1 with Josh Simpson - Exploring Ideas and priced accordingly $950 tuition+lab fee and a usual $170 room & meals. [beginning and intermediate are $485 typically for same length.] http://www.snowfarm.org/ The class webpage does not include the catalog description although it has a statement by Simpson. The catalog says ""Learn to develop and execute your own design ideas with world renowned glassblower Josh Simpson . This free-flowing and fun class will be a combination of demonstration, slide talks, one-on-one instruction and guided exploration of ideas and techniques. We will go over basic overlay and cane making techniques and experience the 'what would happen if' process, which has been an important element in the development of Josh's work." see also http://www.joshsimpson.com/ Other areas that may be occurring the same weekends are Ceramics, Textiles, Woodworking, Drawing/Painting, Welding, Metals/Jewelry, Photography, Stained Glass/Fusing, Glass Beads, and Other Media (9 topics) 2010-02-18 |
PITTSBURGH TEEN CLASSES - I have fallen well behind on the announcements that have been sent to me, but this one still has a few days if there are any openings which there should be because it was sent yesterday. Classes begin February at Pittsburgh Glass center after school for teens as young as 14. http://www.pittsburghglasscenter.org/classes/High-School-classes/classes-Detail.aspx 5472 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206-3455 (412) 365-2145 2010-02-13 |
EXHIBIT IN PITTSBURGH - The Pittsburgh Glass Center will host "From the Earth to Fire and Back" from March 5 to June 13, 2010, in connection with Pitts being designated North American host city for the UN World Environment Day, June 5. "Sand, soda, and flux" from the earth make the connection for 28 artists to "comment on the state of the earth." Artists' reception 5 March. www.pittsburghglasscenter.org 5472 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15206-3455 (412) 365-2145 2010-02-13 |
CLASS IN SOUTH TEXAS - Jayne Duryea will once again hold her annual Beginning Glassblowing class at a bargain price of $275 for a week at Coastal Bend College in Beeville, TX, about half way between San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Room and Board are extra. Classes are 5 days, May 17-20 and May 24-27. duryeaj@coastalbend.edu 361-354-2322, 866-722-2838 x2322 2010-02-13 |
DALLAS ARTISTS OPEN HOUSES - The artists in the neighborhoods southeast of downtown Dallas, hold open houses together as Art in the Hood this Saturday, February 5th, from 11am-6pm www.Artinthehoodtour.com including glassblower Brad Abrams in far southeast Dallas county just outside LBJ and at www.baglass.com and www.bradabramsglass.com 2001-02-03 |
THE STUDIO CLASSES CMOG - The catalog of Spring and Summer Classes for The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass (CMOG) arrived back in January. Spring classes run from March to May and include 10 week classes once a week in the evening, weekend 2 day and 1 day workshops. Besides Glassblowing from the furnace, Flameworking and Flat Glass classes are included. Summer classes are in 1 and 2 week sessions starting May 31 with furnace Glassblowing and Lampworking in every session and Flat Glass and Coldwork in various combinations. By the CMOG definition, Flat Glass includes stained glass, fused glass, sandblasting, painting, and precious metal clay with glass. Summer classes cost about $1300 a week for tuition, room, and partial board. Course information is available at http://cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=156 2010-02-04 |
GLASS MAGAZINE WINTER issue arrived late last year and I have been remiss in not reviewing it. Glass is relentlessly a journal of art, refusing to discuss technique although several points of process get into this issue. The glass images are glorious and the articles wide ranging. This issue has three major articles: a cover feature on Emma Vargas a Yugoslavian/Australian artist, the multimedia work of Mary Van Cline; and the subsequent work after his retirement of the artists who worked with William Morris. The later, with links to their sites are: Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and Jasen Johnsen, Randy Walker, Ross Richmond, Shelley And Rik Allen, Raven Skyriver, Kelly O'Dell, Veruska Vagen. As usual there are brief articles/items on current glass events and reviews of various gallery/museum showings. Subscriptions are $28 per year for 4 issues in the USA. www.glassquarterly.com back issues are $7 plus postage. 2010-02-04 |
DALLAS GLASS CLASS-JAN - Brad Abrams is offering a glass blowing work shop the week of 18-22 January 2010 from 10am-2pm m-f class size 6 people. Contact Brad Abrams at baglassworks@hotmail.com or 972-557-3909. Brad's studio is located in SE Dallas just outside LBJ. 2009-12-20 |