In a search for ways we could get out of the house, but not have to be outside (see the previous posts regarding the weather around here lately!), we found a coupon for a glass blowing class. I have always been fascinated by glass blowing & we have often watched the process on various vacations throughout the years. So, when I saw that we could actually get to do it ourselves and make a memento from the experience, I got very excited.
Bristol, according to the woman who was giving part of the demonstration, is known for their glass blowing and especially blue glass. Though nobody I’ve asked at work this week seemed to be aware of how famous their city is for this art. Thanks to the help of Google, I can tell you that in the early 18th century there were many potters around the Bristol area supplying pots and utensils to ships and traders in the then busy Bristol docks. One such Bristol merchant and potter making porcelain at that time was Richard Champion who was working with the chemist William Cookworthy making white porcelain with beautiful blue designs. In their search to find good quality Cobalt Oxide for this blue decoration they obtained exclusive rights to import Cobalt Oxide to Bristol. At some point, they decided to add it to the glass making process they did as a side job and, whala, Blue Glass was born.
At Bristol Blue Glass, they have three ovens, or crucibles, of molten glass (one blue, one clear, and one cranberry pink). They have to cover the small hole that you pull the starter bit, or gather, out of or else the oven temperature will drop from 2000*F to 1800* in near minutes. Needless to say at those temperatures, they didn’t let us actually do the gathering ourselves.
After withdrawing the gather the glass has to be constantly spun to keep from falling off the blowing iron. It also takes a much harder breath through the iron to inflate the glass than I thought it would. We decided to make simple Christmas ornaments out of the blue glass. Throughout our time, the glassmaker had to tell me several times to blow harder.
Once the artist was happy with the shape and size of the ornament (or bobble as he kept referring to it as), he took us over to what looked like a litter box filled with cork chips. He then scored around the top of the globe (where it was attached to the blowing iron) with an industrial diamond and told us to hit the iron with a piece of wood. This cracked off the ornament from the iron.
He then got a little more molten glass out of the crucible and with essentially a pair of needle-nose pliers created a loop on top to run a string or hook through so it could be hung from the tree.
At this point, it looks like it is finished and ready to take home, however it is apparently still about 900*. Luckily, he explained this before I tried to pick it up. It is then placed into a kiln to cool. It runs at 750* during the day, then is turned off when in the evening so that it slowly cools overnight. We picked up our final products this afternoon.
Strangely Adam’s is noticeably heavier than mine. I guess that will help us tell them apart!
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