What item got you into glass

I have a feeling I know the answer to this question for most of you.

But what one item, or collection of items, got you interested in glass enough to say to yourself, "I want to learn how to make those"?

That being said, did you buy a video, class, or book to help you learn? if so, what was your deciding factor when in choosing one? (eg cost, material covered, location, accessibility, etc..)

I'm writing a piece on how people get interested in the arts, and how they approached their desire to learn.

Money

love.

Actually i commissioned a couple of pieces and watched them be made... the whole while being fascinated and asking questions. Then after asking him to recycle a few broken pipe pieces for me a couple of times, he finally said "why don't you make these fucked up things yourself" he sold me his old torch and set me on my way. After a week of playing around on the torch he talked me through making a spoon and besides learning how to make donuts from him no other classes. As i met more blowers and observed them working , i started asking about things i did differently... and so on.

Fire

when i was extremely little around 8 - 10 years old i was at the topsfield fair and my mom gave me some money to buy what ever. I got this little glass dog sculpture for $15 and thought it was the coolest thing ever that any shape could be made with glass.

then i got into pipes, learned about glasspipes.org and have been hooked on all the possibilities pipes have since 03?... So i guess pipes were what made me want to learn to do it myself, but wasn't the original catalyst for my interest.

pipes to glass love very quickly, i knew the love was there, i just didnt have it until i started.

An interest in pipes, but now it turns out all I want to do is make marbles.

+1 Fire

Old ladies who had lots of money and liked pretty things made by grandsons.

perfume bottles.

I write software for a living and one day realized I was sick of not having anything tangible to show for my time. Consider, if I turn off the computer, one little glitch can destroy any evidence of effort.

So, I went to the Worcester Center for Crafts and found a class that sounded interesting. I like fire, glass is pretty tactile for me, and it's sort of in my blood by birth. So I started off with a boro class and loved it. I bought a hothead and some 104 to play with at home since it was doable outside without too much kit, but I soon moved into the harder stuff.

Now, glass is therapy for me. I'm having a god awful day, I go torch for a while after the kids are in bed and it's like meditation. There's something nice about having a 200 degree marble in your hand knowing you made it from rods and bits of crushed glass just a few hours ago.

hand engraved Christmas ornaments --> stained glass --> fusing glass --> sandblasting --> lampwork beads --> marbles --> blown Christmas ornaments --> goblets

I still laugh when I remember looking at an engraved ornament and saying, "I bet I could make one of these!" I didn't know that working glass is addictive.

Took lessons for a while, but my instructor moved, plus she was mostly a furnace worker. So I bought a shelf-full of DVDs and books, and I practice practice practice to get better. I would definitely take more lessons if there were people around here doing lampworked goblets, graal, and such. Not at all interested in pipes.

i saw my first pipe on dead tour in 1990 and i was hooked on glass as a medium to bring me closer to something that greatly affects my life. i feel it is an honor to make something that people will love and use, to me it is a way to be part of a culture that some people understand and some never will....

and i was also a pyro when i was a kid

fire heh heh

There should be sculptures on the list. That's where I and many old schoolers come from...carnival glass they call it now lol. :D

ah,

but it wont let me, or i would.

watching my cousin making beads when I was 14 or 15, saw my first glass pipe, got really interested, watched the masters at Galway Crystal in Ireland, I knew what I wanted to do. Being a piper naturally appealed to me. Now that Im a piper, Id be happy to never make a piece of prodo again. I love making wine glasses, marbles, pendants, perfume bottles, but damned if I can sell anything thats not a pipe, and Im lucky to manage selling those!

:bangHead::tantrum::wes::flamethro

possible that one of the old timers on this board made the engraved ornaments that inspired me to try glass. I lived in Eugene 76-85, where I bought my ornaments at The Glass Eye. My daughter, who is now grown, was hoping to poach said ornaments off my tree a few years ago, since they have her birth year engraved as part of the pattern. Well, they are definitely the nicest engraved ornaments I have ever found, and they have sentimental value for me too. So I offered to try making some myself.

I found that I like making ornaments so much, I never unpack my old ornaments anymore. The last two years my tree has gotten all new home blown ornaments. Though I have to admit, reversals aren't really very Christmas-y.

It really sucks that people don't appreciate hand crafted glass more. Pottery gets a lot more respect, it seems. (And not just Native American pottery.)

You forgot to list "stupid little monsters", which is what I called the little elephants I had to make when I first started back in 1974 by the time I had made 1000 of them!

- RAM

Depends on what you mean... First lampworker I saw work was a janky pipe maker. First things I made, and the things that allow me to keep burning today, were beads. Why? Burning desire to melt glass and have some life that didn't involve working my ass off for some corporation's profit. Now I work my ass off for myself... that's much better.

Well, this is a hard question to answer simply. The first time I became interested in the medium, I was watching a prodo pipe maker. It was not so much what he was making as the process itself. It was something I knew I wanted to try. Pipes were just a gateway for me into the world of flame working.

Easily it was all the pussy I was supposed to get, girls go wet for creative guys, or so I am told.

But honestly, I was working a job that although it was extremely cool job, I was the top level guy who managed every aspect of 3 businesses all within one job, so even though I was the guy running the whole show, I was also working at least 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. So even though my extremely cool job made me a pimping guy in the safety break community, I wasn't able to enjoy it. I pretty much worked, went home, had supper and collapsed on the couch then slept and started it all over.

Long story short, I met many glass blowers through my job, I started hanging out at their studio, I looked at their lifestyle, which to me *SEEMED* at the time to be the cool and easy life, as they just hung out in their studio all day, shooting the shit, working on the torch, friends dropping by, having safety breaks, listening to good music, making art, etc.... and then I compared it to my lifestyle of work and sleep and not really anything to show for it and I had a background of an artist and wanted that to be my career (although in special effects, not in glass), but anything artistic had to be better than killing myself for a boss, who I forgot to mention treated me like shit and yelled and screamed at me even though I kept his whole scene running and then when he felt bad about doing that, he would toss me down safety break material and extra money.

So I guess this isn't so short, but to skip a lot and to really try to sum up and answer the original question, I have been involved in safety break activism for a long time, so it was a real passion of mine, very important to me and I felt that making pipes was a way of paying homage and honour to the safety break material, to create a proper vessel of art for it to be consumed of, so I saw becoming a pipe maker as a way of becoming more involved in my activist passion for the stuff that does so much good and actually creating something to show for my work.

Mods, if you feel that the last paragraph violates TOC, feel free to delete it, I seriously tried my best to follow rules, I am under the assumption that the word safety break is fine, but maybe my allusions were too obvious, I dunno... anyway if its an issue, just delete it, let me know polietly, no need to flame me. Sorry in advance.

Pianos and wishing wells, but not before I first learned piano stools and wishing well buckets. The one I always wanted to learn back then and to this day have never gotten the chance to make was the sewing machine.

I bought a little dot-stack bead from someone on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley, CA back in 1999 and wanted to learn how it was made. About a year later, my wife (then fiance!) talked my fam into buying me a glassblowing class for xmas.

Quit my day job shortly after the class to intern for a glassblower and worked at the furnace part- to full-time for two+ years in a number of different shops around MA. While working for Josh Simpson, got interested in flameworking by this Japanese girl who was hanging out at Josh's for a couple weeks. Met Sally Prasch (good friend of Josh), who showed me her studio, lent me Bandhu's book(s), and gave me some rods of boro.

I took a survey of beadmaking at Worcester Center for Crafts (:wink2: to Tom) and quit working at the furnace. Traded coldworking (picked up some good skills while working for Josh!) for torch time in Boston and TA'ed a lot at same studio.

The rest is scattered around this forum (and the old one too.) :o:

My wife. I found her at her family's glass shop and it was love ever after. I started with sculpture, btw. Little turtles and shrooms were first. Pipes only came years later.

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Originally Posted by David Sandidge

Pianos and wishing wells, but not before I first learned piano stools and wishing well buckets. The one I always wanted to learn back then and to this day have never gotten the chance to make was the sewing machine.

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I assume you're talking about spun/stitched glass. I have major respect for you and the other artists who started out making production items like that.

This weekend in Mexico I met a lampworker who was making these crazy spinning carousels and other objects all out of spun glass. extremely impressive.

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I assume you're talking about spun/stitched glass. I have major respect for you and the other artists who started out making production items like that.

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A lot of people it seems are a bit curious about that type of work. Not many people doing it amymore. I wonder if there would be enough interest in it for me to do a workshop.

http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i1...8ful/fp62h.jpg

cleans up easy, just a couple of licks, prostate flavored...

seriously though, i saw lampworking at Epcot Center in Disney World before i even had my first erection, fell in love and always wanted to do it. now i do, and i love it, oh, and i function properly now, puberty was amazing..

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Originally Posted by The Glass Fish

My wife. I found her at her family's glass shop and it was love ever after. I started with sculpture, btw. Little turtles and shrooms were first. Pipes only came years later.

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wow! me and my girl met over an apple pie, if she made me a glass fork to eat it with i'd already be married to her..

dondi, your post is fine. we all know that safety breaks are just the moments we take praying before we light our torch, and resting in between so we don't get hurt. it's all about the safety! ;)

:lol

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Originally Posted by PyroChixRock

we all know that safety breaks are just the moments we take praying before we light our torch, and resting in between so we don't get hurt.

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Oh crap, is this forum going religious now? :devilish:

I was fortunate enough to meet Paul Stankard in 1976. My father became very good friends with him and after many trips to his studio I developed a love for the medium and mostly for floral paperweights. I was amazed that the flowers and insects looked sooooo real.

I saw a three neck flask and was told it was made by hand... Boom, life changed, learning glassblowing.

for me it was animal sculptures at disney when i was 8, then later making jewelry and thinking the beads were expensive and i could make them myself.
ro

the first artistic pipe i ever bought or held for that matter was a FREEEK piece. the second i saw it i wanted it, then i really looked at it, it left me breathless.

ever since i have been obsessed with glass. learning everything i could about it, without actually ever messing with it. after 2 or so years i saved up enough to actually buy my torch and supplies. i have been on the torch for 3 weeks now and i just cant put it down. if only oxygen wasnt so expensive... i wouldnt put it down.

Once i thought about it the first glass pipe i made was in Chemistry class in 11th grade.... around 1983.... My lab partner ran the experiment and our lab station was by the cabinet with all the glass. I found a funnel blank bent the stem and fire polished the mouth piece.... a far cry from the stuff i make now but a pipe none the less

Senior in high school saw an itinerant glass spinner make a large lace ship. Said to myself I can do that! Such is the arrogance of teens! Got hold of laboratory glass kit and made a lot of messes. Got a job at the local college fixing their broken equipment. Decided lab work not for me. Lots of craft shows with lace and solid small sculptures. STILL LEARNING!!!!

my option isnt here. it was nothing in my posession but i got into it because i wanted to do lighting/lighted sculpture and plasma stuff. none of which i have come even close to attempting yet

candlesticks, birdbaths & unicorns were my first items (LOTS of 'em...)
i learned "on the job" in a warehouse with no ventilation.

it was this thing that got me hooked...And I've been working toward hoping to be this good someday. When I drew the design I had never worked glass; when I got the piece in my hands I knew what I was meant to do. i gotta big up Shane for giving me the tricks of the trade, and getting me hooked for good.

http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/Ful...5_PICT0117.JPG

http://www.glasspipes.org/Images/Ful...8_PICT0128.JPG

Boyd Art Glass animals; I still have some and might make them into marbles someday.