Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Quita Pone Bean Pot, 2005, Courtesy of the artists
Another hot process is hot sculpting, not unlike making taffy candy – transferring molten glass from one punty to another, twirling, swirling, even allowing gravity to free-form “slumped glass” sculpture. Between the weight of the materials and tools, and the steady movement while working, you can expect a good upper-body workout.
Can you work in glass in an apartment or home studio without taking up such space? Try lampworking. This is largely glasswork on a small, intimate scale, creating beads, paperweights, or small sculptures. Here you’ll need a small heat source, like a torch that combines propane and oxygen propped up in a table stand facing you.
Making a bead, for example, you’ll slowly heat a glass rod or tube. Once molten, you’ll wind the glass around a coated steel mandrel, forming the base bead. It can then be embellished or decorated using a variety of techniques and materials that include wrapping or dripping glass of a contrasting color onto the base, while still warm. Once finished, the piece is (as with all hot glass projects) annealed in a small oven to relieve stresses on the glass, and prevent your piece from shattering; it is then allowed to cool to room temperature.
If heating and shaping glass isn’t for you – but you still want to try working in glass, there’s cold glass. Here you take sheets, blocks, or other shapes of already formed glass, then cut and assemble them with glue or other adhesive. In addition to the building-block design aspect of cold glass, you’ll also sand and polish edges. As with other glass projects, you can also sandblast, etch, or paint the surface for artistic effect.
You can even buy preformed objects – bowls, plates, etc. – and create cut glass using a small Dremel tool or flexible shaft drill. Make sure you keep the surface wet, though. It’ll keep the surface from heating up and cracking.
Design for the Great Rose Window of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York, NY, Courtesy of the Charles J. Connick Stained Glass Foundation, Ltd.
And, finally, there’s stained glass, which is easily mastered and fun, besides. You can work your way up to a giant rose window, but there are plenty of projects, from free-form assembly to light catchers to actual single-pane windows that you can make on a dining room table. To hold the glass pieces together you either wrap self-adhesive copper foil along the edges, or slip the glass into cames, which are lead, copper, or bronze channels, and then solder. You’ll need graph paper to design a pattern, colored glass, a glasscutter, shears (for cames – scissors for cutting the foil rolls) a soldering iron and solder.
Sound like there’s something for everyone? That’s just one of the beauties of working with glass.
Einar and Jamex de la Torre demonstrate hot sculpting at Pilchuck Glass School.
Artists like William Morris help execute the designs of Dale Chihuly. Together they create vessels that are amazing in their creativity and execution - See the Artist’s Bio and Work HERE
We filmed glass artist brothers, Einar and Jamex de la Torre for the COMMUNITY episode.
30 Artists who work with Glass are represented in the Exhibition - see the Glass works online HERE
Want to draw a storyboard that illustrates how artists make a blown glass object? Download a lesson plan HERE
Many of America’s important Glass artists are featured in the Book. Learn more about the Book and where to order HERE
Over 4 hours of video available online. To view a list of all video content click HERE
