I like to think that for all of my misgivings (see: laundry), my main strength is my resourcefulness.

Case in point: I FOUND A GLASSBLOWING CLASS FOR US!!

ARE YOU KIDDING??

Totally not kidding! I found these classes out of the Glass Museum in Tacoma, and nearly lost my mind.

So, I signed up the older two kids and Ben and me and we spent last weekend creating our own glass projects!

So, here’s how it worked.

 

First, we had to show up to the Glass Museum! This place is beautiful, and amazing. Not only do you get to see the incredible pieces of artwork in the museum, but they also let you sit in the gallery of their hot shop. There are always guest artists building their pieces here, and I could just watch them for days.

Which is why when I found out about their classes, in their hot shop, I was on it like white on rice.

This is the hot shop, and it is way bigger than you’d expect! They have 4 or 5 furnaces, each for a different purpose. Some are just to heat the project, some are to collect molten glass, some are for other things that I wasn’t paying attention to…

But the work area was spacious and fantastic.

First we were given our poles and had to heat the first step of our glass piece. This would be the colored part in the middle, so we dipped the glass on the pole into some bowls of crushed colored pieces, and then put it back in the furnace to melt the colors into the glass.

Then we rolled the pole on some bars to shape it a little.

Then we took tools and started manipulating the glass.

We pulled, twisted, pinched and molded the colors until we were happy with it.

After this, we dipped it into the glass again to make the outside portion…cooled it a little, and put it in the oven to cool for a few days.

And that was it!  It took a few hours, but honestly it felt like a few minutes. Every artist there helped us with every step, and were the greatest team to work with. The kids talked about how much fun that was for days, and admitted that now they have done it once…they kinda want to do it all the time, now.

And THAT is the beauty of art 🙂 The part that fills your soul with joy from creating something incredible. For all the wonders of technology, there is nothing that will replace the fulfillment of making something with your own two hands.

So, these are our creations!

Mine!

Nova’s!

Ben’s!

Glenn’s!

Hopefully this is only the first of many trips to the hot shop!!