Never afraid to experiment with glass, Mark Zirpel took to the Hot Glass Roadshow stage where he performed a series of pieces including blowing glass horns to play a “humpback whale duet” and exploring the reactive forces of glass, steam and pressure in a piece about pleasure. His gallery work often blends science and art, so it’s no surprise that Mark tries out new techniques in the Hotshop like a scientist in the lab.
Ryan Doolittle caught this shot during the show:
Mark Zirpel utilizes an unorthodox method to squirt water onto the jackline
For South Seattle artist Jen Elek, “People, the relationships we have with one another, and the places we occupy, inspire my work. Making art acts as a translator, helping me process messages presented by modern media. My personal interpretation of American culture is the basis for my artwork.” In this piece, Butchigiri 2011 CMoG Roadshow, Jen draws on a method learned from gaffer Bryan Rubino to create a colorful grape inspired sculpture.
The Hot Glass Roadshow is a mobile studio that allows artists to blow glass in virtually any environment anywhere in the world. We brought the Roadshow to this year’s Glass Art Society Conference in Seattle, WA, where we had the opportunity to work with amazing artists.
To make all this happen, the team had to work out the logistics of setting up the Roadshow in the Seattle Convention Center. John Cowden helped set up the stage:
“This is the truck maneuvering in the Seattle Convention Center where the Glass Art Society Conference took place. This room is on the fourth floor. The truck drove up through the curving ramp up four floors. The Convention Center is on both sides of Pike Street and the truck drove over a bridge in the Convention Center from one side of the street to the other. We made it out with just one flat tire!”
The truck arrives
Ready for action
This week’s post is by Museum Explainer Anne Rich.
You know you’re an Explainer when you leap at the chance to spend a free afternoon shaping slightly aged animal poop. The afternoon in question occurred on Tuesday, May 22, when the Explainers were invited to a core-forming workshop hosted by The Studio’s Resident Adviser, Bill Gudenrath. An authority on ancient glassmaking techniques, Bill helped us recreate the process of core-making.
Bill explains the history of core-formed glass vessels.
For all the non ancient glassmaking experts out there, a core is a form attached to a rod on which glass is applied to make a non-blown vessel. A core needs to be made out of a heat resistant and relatively porous material, because after the glass vessel surrounding it has cooled, the core is scraped out to leave behind a hollow space. Historically, the core was made out of clay and, the part that manages to capture everyone’s attention, animal dung.
The animal dung
The dung was allegedly used because it contained undigested grass and straw, which burned away when fired. While the clay and dung covered the heat resistant requirement, the small holes left behind by the grass and straw covered the porous requirement.
When explaining the content of the Ancient Cart in the Glass Collection Galleries, someone always grabs the core from the cart, and says “What’s this?” All of the Explainers, past and present, understand the feeling you get when you have to explain that they’re holding fired poop on a stick. For the Explainers, core-forming has served as a sort of inside joke as well as a crucial glassmaking technique that is taught to us from the very beginning of our training. You can only imagine my excitement when I got the news that Bill Gudenrath invited us to make some new cores for the Ancient Cart. Still away at college at the time, my roommate thought I was insane when I tried to explain what I was going to do the week I got home. My parents produced a similar reaction when I told them my plans for May 22nd.
The core forms
By the time everyone had arrived at the Mold Room at The Studio, so had the ingredients. On one side of the sink stood the clay, and on the other side lay an ominous looking bag of unopened horse dung. Certain resources revealed that our supply of dung had spent the past few hours in the back of a hot car. It wasn’t until the bag was opened that two things hit me…1. The smell, and 2. That this wasn’t going to be a fairytale tea-party (with interesting tidbits of glassmaking history). We were embarking on a truly hands-on experience, one in which we would spend half an hour kneading a poop-like play-dough a few inches away from each other’s faces.
A job well done!
This was a bit trickier than expected, and most of us Explainers spent a relatively long time fashioning our cores into neat and historically accurate shapes. After an inspection, they were ready to be dried for a few weeks. We Explainers were invited back on June 14 to file them into their final shapes before they were to be fired in the kiln. I thought that it was a big deal to have to work with wet dung, but then I spent time filing dried cores. Powdered poop filled the air in the Technician’s Room which hosted the second half of our core-making experience.
Filing the core forms
Glamorous, right? In a weird kind of way, I think it was. Don’t get me wrong here; I’m so grateful that I was able to attend the workshop and engage in a process that I’d so frequently explained yet never seen. We Explainers laugh about making cores, but we made them basically the same way they were made as early as the 16th century B.C.E. Glassmaking, though sometimes unsavory, is a process marked by centuries of tradition, and is just a part of what makes glass so special.
For more information on Museum Explainers, visit http://www.cmog.org/dynamic.aspx?id=242.
Last year the Museum acquired an interesting new object. It is a panel made up of two rectangular sheets of assembled thin glass rods with painted paper cutouts sandwiched between them and held together at the edges with paper tape. The cutouts represent a scene of Chinese glass blowers. The panel was probably made for a table screen or room screen. So far the only similar objects we have found are three panels in the Museum’s collection. Their sizes and imagery are different, but their constructions are basically the same. Although no other glass rod panels have been found outside of the Museum’s collection, the panels produce an effect very similar to carved slates of hardstone, and painted panels of porcelain and ivory of which numerous examples were decorated in the nineteenth century.
2010.6.26 Before Treatment
2010.6.26 After Treatment
Because these panels seem to be so rare, our curator of European glass, Florian Knothe, and I have been studying the four panels to better understand their constructions and history. As part of the study we analyzed the glass with our handheld XRF (x-ray fluorescence) spectrometer.
XRF analysis of the panel.
XRF analysis allows us to detect the composition of the glass and paint pigments. The results are only semi-quantitative, so they can’t give us the exact compositions, but they can tell us if the glass rods in the different panels are similar and help identify some of the paints. We are hoping to present a paper on the panels at a conservation conference next year.
The panel also needed some conservation treatment. It was very dirty and the edges were very fragile.
Edge of the panel with small losses of paper and glass beside it. The panel is lying on top of a sheet of plexiglass which was used to move the panel.
The treatment took 28 ½ hours, most of which was spent on cleaning the glass surfaces with saliva.
The panel was cleaned with cotton balls dampened with saliva and a water/ethanol mix.
Saliva is often used in conservation because it has enzymes which help dissolve and pick up dirt. Because of its viscosity, saliva also wets the object less than other solvents such as water.
The panel partially cleaned.
The edges of the panel were consolidated with a thin solution of a very stable acrylic resin. They were further stabilized by folding strips of Japanese tissue around the edges.
Strips of Japanese tissue were folded around the edges and glued in place with a thin solution of an acrylic resin. Small weights were placed on the tissue while the glue set.
Even the new frame for the panel has some special features protect the edges.
There is a strip of volara (a closed-cell polyethylene foam) between the object and the frame to provide a cushion for the fragile edges.
Unfortunately the paper elements in the panels are sensitive to light and would be damaged and become faded if exposed to too much light. This means that the panel will not be on view permanently. But, the panel is currently on view in the “East Meets West” exhibit in the Museum’s West Bridge Gallery.
Panel on view in the Museum.
If you get a chance stop by and see it! Be sure to look at it from different angles to see how the glass rods produce a unique light effect. At certain angles the painted figures really pop out at you.