Lookie What I Made !!!

Two weeks ago tomorrow my brother, sister and I took a glass paperweight making class. It was held at the Pittsbugh Glass Center in conjunction with Chihuly at Phipps. We met at Phipps at 9AM for a tour, this was the third time we've been there while the Chihuly works are there. If you get a chance, go see his work, it's incredible ! And of course it all looks just as if it belongs, like the glass and plants have been there forever. Anyway, after the tour which ended around 10:30, we drove to Pittsburgh Glass Center, eating our lunch on the way. Our class started at 11:30 and we were excited, the three of us were like little kids ! Our class consisted of only 8 people total and with the exception of a mother and son the others were there alone. We had 2 instructors and we were all ready to make some glass, only one person complained about the heat. Duh, we're going to be working with molten glass(2000*F), did she think it was going to be cold.
After a brief description of what we were going to do and some safety tips, Brian, one of our instructors made a paperweight, to show us the process. Of course he made it look easy peasy and by the way he looked as if he was maybe 18 and Stephanie, the other instructor maybe 21, talented kids.
So now we're ready to start, each of them took one person, so two of us at a time were making paperweights. My brother was the first of the three of us to make his paperweight, so of course I watched very closely. Then it was my turn, Brian "gathered" the molten glass for me and handed me the gathering rod, with the molten glass on the end of it. You have to keep turning the rod or the glass will fall off, so I'm turning the rod and trying to put it in a metal bowl filled with colored glass chips at the same time. Not easy, but fun, just the same. There were eight different metal bowls with eight different colors of glass to choose from, we were to use only three colors. From there, we had to go to the "glory hole", to melt the just added glass pieces, all the while turning the orange glowing hunk of molten glass. Once the pieces have melted, I sat down at the bench thingy(can't remember the name) and started to create my own one of a kind paperweight. I took my tweezers (huge tweezers) and started to pull and twist the molten glass, while Brian kept the rod turning. The glass begins to cool very quickly, so you don't really have too much time to play. Once it had cooled to the point of not being able to manipulate, Brian went back and added some more molten glass, so we could begin to shape and round the paperweight. To do this you use a "block" which looks like a wooden soup ladle with a notch on one side, the block soaks in water all of the time, but it still begins to smoke rather quickly. As Brian turned the rod, I had to keep the block on the paperweight in order to make it round. This is where you really, really feel the heat on your arm, and also where you need some one to hold a wooden shield under your arm. The shield looks like wooden paddle that was used in schools, back in "the good old days"
At this point the paperweight is almost done and you still really don't know what it's going to look like because it's still so hot, that the center is orange. You can somewhat see the design, but not much. So you take the rod with the almost molten glass to another table, hold it upside down over a fireproof bunch of rags and hit the rod with a little bat and the paperweight falls off. Then Brian used a torch to heat up the bottom so it's orange hot again and I took a metal paddle and placed it on the bottom to flatten it.
All done, but it's much too hot to take home and besides that it can't just sit and cool, it has to be cooled in an annealer. This cools slowly so as not to crack the glass.
So the following Tuesday (they are closed mondays), Ralph and I went to pick up all of the paperweights.

And this is my final product

It's sitting on a light that I got at Ikea for a paperweight that I already had

I think it looks sooo cool !! And I made it !!!

And because our class was small, we were all able to make a second paperweight. I made this one for Ralph.

Isn't it neat....................

All 6 of the paperweights turned out really nice. And the three of us are considering taking another one day workshop to make something else. We're not sure if we want to try lampwork or maybe blowing next.

If you ever get the opportunity to work with glass, take it, I know you'll enjoy it.