New Workshops and Other News!!!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.