Lincoln City Glass Blowing

Pretty Woman with Votive

Ok, this isn't exactly hiking or kayaking or other out-doors adventure, but sometimes, especially in the winter, you need something else to do on the beach. Perhaps something Hot.  Perhaps something 2400 degrees Fahrenheit! 

My partner and I are spending a few days in Lincoln city. The weather is exceptional for a Monday in January, sunny and 60 degrees. But when we were here last year it was 40 and pouring rain, so the fact that we scheduled some time to be indoors next to a hot furnace should not be held against us. We are visiting the Lincoln City Glass Center to spend an hour learning about (and helping to create) some glass doodads. 

My partner has decided to make a glass float. This is a colored glass sphere modeled after the glass floats that were used by Japanese fishermen to buoy their fishing nets. When the nets were lost or the floats got loose, they would float across the Pacific and fetch up on Oregon beaches to be found by Oregon beach combers. I am betting this is why the art glass blowing industry is located in the beach towns today. I am going to make a Votive. A votive doesn't have a cool backstory, but you can put a candle into it. 

These are Japanese floats from circa 1940 that were
found on the beaches or Oregon.
such floats are still found occasionally.

The way this works is there is a glass craftsman (artist?) that works with you. You pick out the shape you want (for the votive, for instance, you have some say over the shape of the opening) and the colors and pattern of the colors (I wanted blue-green swirl, Paige wanted green dots). Then you get to be out near the furnace with the craftsman during the creation. You get to twirl it around some and move it back and forth from the furnace to the workbench. The fun part, however, is getting to be right there as the craftsman explains the process for you and creates your object. 

Mine went like this:

0) Lay out little glass pieces in the colors you are going to incorporate into your object. For me is was a bunch of "warm color" fragments (mainly blue and green) and then another set of white for a swirl.

1) Get some glass out of the 2400 degree furnace on the end of hollow metal tube.

2) Let it cool a little while turning it constantly to keep it roundish.

3) Dip into the furnace again and pick up some more glass. Cool this again in the air.

4) Crunch the soft glass onto the blue-green fragment making the object into a square sided thing. Then crunch the white into the sharp edges of the box. 

5) Heat in a side furnace again. constantly turning. We are melting all of the colored fragments so they combine with the main part of the glass.

6) Push the glass onto the table rotate with force to put some swirl into it. Grab the end of the glass with a special pliers and clamp it down. This allows you to torc the object to get it turn some so you can add more swirl to the colors. Keep clamping and turning until you cut a little marble of glass off the end. 

7) heat again. a long time.

8) Use this wooden cup thing to shape the glass. I am suspicious that this step was just to give me more interaction with the object.

9) Blow some air into the tube and make a bubble of air in the glass. In normal times, this blowing would be done using ones mouth on the hollow pipe. But since it is covid, we used an air compressor and a rubber hose. 

10) heat again.

11) Add even more air. But this time, do it will heating the end of the glass with a hand torch. This makes the end of the glass softer than the main body so it eventually blows out, leaving a hole!!

12) heat again

13) now the artist uses a set of well... metal chopsticks. She spins the glass and uses the chopsticks to shape the hole into the opening of the votive. 

14) I don't know. Probably heat again. Sure, lets heat it again.

15) One more set of shaping with the chopsticks, then off to the side where I get to give the blow tube a little knock with a mallet that separates the glass from the tube. 

16) Now the artists gets a little piece of molten glass and makes a little stand for the votive which she attaches and stamps with a little logo. how cute. 

17) And she hands it to you and you go home.

18) Just Kidding! If she handed it to you, it would burn your hands AND the thermal shock of your cold hands would probably shatter the glass. What she actually does is move the votive (using insulated tongs) over to a holding oven where it will sit with the rest of the days creations at 900 degrees until the store closes. Then it will slowly cool all night and be ready for pickup after 10:00 AM tomorrow.

The Next Day. 

Wow. that was exciting. Now I get to take pictures of my Partner !!