After changing jobs back in 2004 I lost my tuition reimbursement while attending college. I could not afford or justify the cost of paying for the whole thing myself so I stopped going. But I had been going part time for a couple years and was really enjoying learning new things. So I grabbed my local community ed. schedule and signed up for 2 classes. One was "buying a duplex as an investment" and the other was "beginning stained glass". Well I never bought a duplex, and in this market I am really glad about that. But I did immediately take to playing with glass. I ordered a full set of tools from my instructor on the first night of class. I did that for over a year and loved it. Here is probably my favorite stained glass piece that I ever made. It still hangs in my living room.
One day I was talking to my stained glass instructor who I became friends with and she told me she had just gotten a glass kiln. She invited me over to make a couple small pieces and give it a try. I was immediatly hooked. I had the kilnforming bug. It stayed planted in my head for about six months and then I came across a Craigslist ad for a glass kiln. I went and took a look at it and bought it on the spot. The problem was that it was too big for my current house. So into storage it went until I could sell my house and move into a bigger house. The bug was still there. I continued to browse Craigslist for kilns and came across this little guy:
It runs on normal household current and was ready to go. I played with it for a little while using the manual controls but that got old quickly. So I tracked down a used 120v kiln controller on Warmglass.com. I was now able to program the kiln. I started making stuff, and more stuff, and more stuff. My then fiance (now wife) said she thought my stuff was really nice and I should start selling. So I did. I actually sold a lot of stuff. People seemed to like what I was making. If you want to see some of the things I made here is a link to my flickr page with a lot of my glass work posted on it.
Somewhere during this journey I stopped at a glass blowing studio during an art crawl. It was my last stop. I stayed there for a few hours watching these guys make glass stuff. Playing with 2000 degree glass like it was Play Do. Very hot and dangerous Play Do! I decided it was something I needed to try. My then future mother-in-law (now current mother-in-law) bought me a gift certificate to Foci Glass for a "Glass Exploration" class for Christmas. Basically a paperweight class. I worked one on one with one of the resident glassblowers, Todd Cameron, and made a couple goofy little lopsided paperweights. One of them proudly featuring chunks of the glory hole door embedded in it. I was hooked. So this holiday season all my sales from my kilnformed glass went into saving for glassblowing classes and if all went well hot shop time after the class was over. My now mother-in-law once again came through with my favorite Christmas gift of this season. A gift certificate to Foci to help pay for the class! I am now halfway through the class and have a couple more slightly less lopsided paperweights and have actually managed to put a bubble into glass and make something slightly resembling a vessel. That I let get a little too cold and cracked during the knockoff but it was fun to make and a great learning experience. Tonight is my third night of class and I am going in early to polish the bottoms of my paperweights and see if I can watch any of the more experienced blowers working.
Well if you made it this far thanks for reading my ramblings. Stay tuned to this page for more of my glass adventures.
-drew-
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