STARworks Glass Lab

New Workshops and Other Happenings

2011-01-12T12:55:00.004-05:00

FEBRUARY 11TH VALENTINES DAY MAKE YOUR OWN HEART OR FLOWER !!!

For more information call Nick Fruin at (910) 428-9001 or contact by email at Nick@starworksnc.org.

$25 fee for each "Make Your Own"

New Classes

Intro to Glassblowing

An accelerated, introductory course in glassblowing that touches on the fundamentals of glass.

Students will:

learn basic hot shop techniques, tools, and equipment
learn the basics of blowing and manipulating glass
create simple, glass objects, such as paperweights, free-form sculptures, and vessels

Fees:
$325.00

Schedule:
January 15-16, February 19-20

Next Steps in Glassblowing

This course is the follow-up to Intro to Glassblowing. Using both colored and colorless glass, the student will learn to make objects at the bench, such as cups, vessels, and scultpures.

Fees:
$325.00

Schedule:
March 19-20

Registration:
To register call Nick Fruin at (910) 428-9001 or by email at Nick@starworksnc.org.

Class needs six students to run, so invite your friends!!!

Intro to Fusing 3 Hour Workshop

This course is designed to be an additional option for those interested in glass. Students will learn to cut flat glass, arrange them into their own patterns, and fuse them in the kiln.

Fees:
$75.00

Schedule:
January 22, February 26, March 26

3 hour Hot Glass Workshop

Every second Saturday of the month, STARworks Glass will hold a three hour workshop for the public. Students will make flowers and paperweights during the session.

Fees:
$75.00

Schedule:
January 8, February 12, March 12

Registration:
To register call Nick Fruin at (910) 428-9001 or by email at Nick@starworksnc.org.

Class needs three students to run, so invite your friends!!!

Back from Pilchuck and Off to Other Adventures

2010-08-12T12:31:00.004-04:00

Back from the North West to find the hot shop is still here and ok. A couple of our renters Dan and Dave got some work done while I was away. Fellow STARworker, Adam Landman was kind enough to keep the shop functioning for them in my absence. Thanks Adam.

Now that I am back the shop is up and running at full steam again. Tim Ayers, a friend of STARworks and newcomer to glass, has been in the shop lately. We have been working on blowing a mold of a large barnacle. Here are some shots from the second attempt of us blowing the mold.

Here is the before. You can see we have a large glass bubble. I was able to get my friend Jimmy to help with the blow, you can see him blowing in the end of the pipe while I am shaping the glass bubble. This was only moments before we went into the mold with the glass.

These are what came out of the mold. Look! They're giant glass barnacles, WOW!.....

This is only part of what has been going on here at STARworks Glass. We have also been getting ready for the upcoming school year and workshop season. Hope we can get some of you to sign up. We are also working on making 53 glass cloud animals for the Triad Stage in Greensboro. They are going to use them and some of our other work in there up coming production of The Glass Menagerie. I'll be posting photos of the work for them soon.

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2010-07-01T11:13:00.002-04:00

Here is a photo from a latest Tour. A 4-H group from stanly county came down yesterday. As part of their tour they watched a glassblowing demo, and had a clay experience. Their Glassblowing Demo consisted of me and my "baller" assistant Adam Landman making a large wavy bowl. Which, is a really fun thing for people who have never seen glassblowing to watch. At the end there was a lot of good questions, usually people are to nervous to ask questions but not the girls in this group. They were very curious about just about everything we did down to why the bench was were it was. They also enjoyed a little science experiment that we showed them. If you want to know what that is you will have to come and see for yourself.

New Workshops and Other News!!!

2010-04-13T11:59:00.003-04:00

Announcing the line up of workshops for April and May.

April 24-25: Intro to Glass Blowing full weekend class
May 8: 3 Hour Glass Blowing workshop
May 15: 3 Hour Fusing workshop
May 27-28: Intro to Glass Blowing full weekend class

Also the Next open house is Saturday June 5th. 4:30 - 7:30, check us out along with the rest of STAR, NC. As the open house follows events earlier in the day for STAR Heritage Days.

Other news I will not be here for July... I'm going to PILCHUCK ! ! !
I will a TA during the third session this summer for James Mongrain aka "Jimmy the Wig" here is the artist / class info from the Pilchuck catalog.

Renowned goblet maker and glassblower JAMES
Mongrain was introduced to glass at Minnesota
State University Moorhead and later studied at Mas-
sachusetts college of Art and Design and the Appa-
lachian center for craft. Since 1993, he has worked on
many projects with Dale chihuly, beginning with chihuly
Over Venice. In 1997, he opened Mongrain Glass Studio,
located in Mukilteo, Washington. Mongrain has worked
with such artists as Jim Dine, Jeff Koons, Kiki Smith, and
Robert Wilson. He exhibits nationally, and his work has
received much recognition, including a nomination for
the louis comfort tiffany Award.

Goblets: Form and Context All artists begin their visual education
by imitating in order to learn. American glassmaking aficionados look at historical
forms and copy them, so that the body learns systems of making much as the eye
learns to see and the mind learns to recognize. the venerable Venetian tradition
of delicate form and flourish in goblet making provides an excellent foundation for
accomplished glassmakers who wish to advance their design and making abilities.
While immersed in questions of function, design, and technical efficiency, students
will gain thorough and intensive experience with methods of hot construction, bit
work, teamwork, and the garage. Discussion, visiting artists, demonstrations, and
exercises will help each student define a personal voice within a long-standing craft
tradition.

2010-03-05T09:26:00.003-05:00

On the 19th FWM Christian Academy came down for a tour of starworks and a Glass blowing demonstration. They all had a great time. The younger students especially enjoyed themselves. But good news for the older students the school is thinking about trying to put together a separate workshop of class for them.

We made two big platters for the demonstrations. Here is a photo of me working on one of them. Helping with the platter were Stephen Protheroe, and Laura Luttrell. Laura is new to Starworks but has some glass working back ground, having her in the shop helping was really fun for us all.

2010-02-09T16:23:00.004-05:00

After a couple of months dazed and confused by trying to get whole lot of work in the studio done I'm back. Sorry for the delay I know a couple of you were missing what was going on in the glass studio, and are curious to know what has been happening.

LOTS OF THINGS!!!!

Eddie, Suzie, Mac, Steve, and I had a show in Charlotte. At the Red Sky gallery the four of us glass blowers showed some of our functional/ sculptural wares, and Mac and I did a very cool CoLab. Suzie has photo's from the show I'll have to hunt her down steal her camera and post them.

We also had a very successful Christmas open house. With over 80 of the locals snagging up and talking about our ornaments, and entranced by the HOT glass Christmas tree everyone had a blast. We are now going to have a Valentine's Day open house. We are actually going let a bunch of people who have never touched HOT glass before try to make a heart or flower! Like one of these.

2009-11-25T15:20:00.002-05:00

STARworks & East Montgomery High's First Glassblowing Class in action. My students are working on there hardest assignments yet the dreaded 6" cylinder!!!

2009-11-12T09:34:00.002-05:00

Here it is! One of the neatest things we have done yet, our batch pre-heater/ heat exchanger. You can see in the photo an elbow comes directly off of the flue. It then attaches to a T that we made with two butterfly valves inside. With those in place we can direct heat to either the batch box, heat exchanger, or both at the same time!! Craziness! The largest diameter horizontal cylinder is the heat exchanger. It has two pipes coming in and out of it that circulate glycol. To and from a heat storage tank down in the bio-diesel area.

2009-11-03T12:03:00.000-05:00

Well, the annual "gathering" is over. It was a blast. My students from East Montgomery High helped out with a killer glassblowing demo. We made a Giant Central Park NC Leaf! The students had a blast and really showed that they are becoming more and more comfortable with the material.
Right now we are very actively trying to get a heat exchanger and batch pre-heater fabricated and put up in the studio. What it is going to do is take the waste heat from off the furnace. Divert some of it down to an insulated box for pre-heating batch before charging. The rest of the heat will pass through the heat exchanger and through an air to liquid exchange the heat energy will end up stored in bio-fuels. The heat that is stored will be used as process heat needed to convert used vegetable oil into bio-diesel! Pretty cool right.

2009-10-21T09:29:00.002-04:00

Hey there everyone. It's been a while since I've blogged, sorry about that. There has been a lot that has happened since the last post. These two here came in for a week. Our biggest rental yet, they worked five, eight hour day's and one five hour day. It was a whole lot of work, and what where they making you may ask. Chickens!! Jon had a commission from K.F.C. to make over 800 chicken ornaments for K.F.C. to give away as gifts. We didn't get all of them made in that week but we got a big chunk taken care of.

Also other exciting news..... Starworks Glass Lab has our very own high school glassblowing class!! We have been able to work with East Montgomery high school to provide a class during their regular school day. So far the class is ten students and we meet twice a week for two hours each time. We have been able to cover glass fusing as well as glass blowing. Right now the students are in there first week of making cylinders a crucial step in learn how to blow glass.

Soon I will post some pictures of the class in action.

2009-09-22T09:15:00.002-04:00

This past weekend we held our second fusing class, here is a photo of some of the work that was made. The class was really fun everyone who took it had a blast. Other than that studio has been pretty busy we are working on making cups for the "Annual Meeting". We are also working on new work for a show that we have coming up here pretty soon. And we have the week booked solid with renters making chicken ornaments.

2009-08-18T16:13:00.000-04:00

Man, I just can't say it enough, I love to cut things with an angle grinder. Even if it is through solid as a rock, ultra strong, corrosion resistant cast-able with a really old crappy blade. Well I guess I wasn't exactly thrilled, but it wasn't too bad.

We are still working on the furnace, a new door and cap got cast last night. So after just a couple more things get changed we will be ready to stuff the top with fiber and MICROTHERM!!!

We are going to save that for a weekend evening.

2009-08-11T10:33:00.000-04:00

So yesterday Adam and I took the cap off of the furnace. Which was kind of funny because it looked quite daunting, we had even freed up a whole two hours of our afternoon to take it out. We originally thought that we were going to break it up by drilling a bunch of holes and then break off small sections to pull out really easily. Yeah I ended up hitting it with a chisel and a hammer it took 15 min. We thought it was awesome. Our lives are average. REMINDER fusing class next Saturday, sign up now!!!

Fusing Classes

2009-07-23T15:04:00.000-04:00

Just an announcement, August 22-23 we will be offering a fusing class here at STARworks glass. I am working on the structure for the class now. It is going be a nice addition to the line up of classes here at the glass studio. Also for August the Hot Shop is going to be turned off so that we can make some repairs on our furnace. Other than that, we are just working on the studio as well as getting some of our own work done. Also, Takuro is building a new Kiln at his home and we are going to be making a mold for a cast door arch that should be pretty fun.
Keep an eye on our website for up coming workshop and open house dates.

2009-06-09T10:56:00.000-04:00

Hey Nick here,

This is my first blog ever and i guess i just want to say the the hot shop is doing well. StevO and I have been having a blast making some new work, and Megan a new Wet Dog employee has been working in it as well. We are also offering some new class this summer check out the website or stop in and check it out. There is a new weekend 3 hr workshop that is quickly becoming popular, it is offered ever second saturday and we are hoping to increase that as well. Any way back to work.