Glassblowing Field Trip!

My 8th grade class just returned from a field trip to McFadden Art Glass in Baltimore where we had an amazing time making blown glass bowls and cups today! The kids were involved in every step of the creation process and they had a terrific experience... We will be able to pickup the cooled pieces later (check back for pictures!), but here are some pics of the process- enjoy! 

After molten glass was collected on the blow pipe from a giant furnace, the pipe was cooled in this nifty fountain to make handling it a little more comfortable: 

After a second gathering of glass, students gently rolled the glass onto colored glass frit of their choice (the pipe has to be turning the entire time so the glass doesn't plop off the end like dripping honey!): 

 The glass is heated again so that the color can melt into the glass...:

and then Tim, the owner of the studio helped blow the first bit of air into the piece, before we rolled against this metal table to get it to a nice even shape.  

Students then worked at the bench with Tim to shape the piece further using these big tweezers to pinch the top and other various shaping tools depending on if they were making bowls or cups:

 Meanwhile, a friend is helping out at the end of the pipe by blowing additional air into it to make the piece larger (not as easy as it looks- you have to blow pretty hard and move from side to side while blowing since the pipe is constantly twirling):

 

At the same time, a new bit of glass has been gathered on the end of a solid pipe, which is called a "punty". The punty is stuck onto the bottom of the glass piece so that it can be detached from the blow pipe and then worked with further from the open end:

Students then used the tweezers to open and shape the mouth of their bowl or cup. Occasionally the glass needed to be reheated to make it more flexible/workable. Depending on the piece, small additional steps were required (to make a heart shape, students had to push down certain parts of the rim of the bowl. To create a wavy rim, the bowl was heated and then twirled really FAST, which causes the glass to spread out; then when you hang it upside down and turn it, the thin, spread out edge becomes wavy) :

 The last step is to detach the piece from the pipe and put it in an annealing oven overnight so they can slowly cool (cooling too fast = shattering glass!). A friend helped out with this step too, catching the piece in these gigantic oven mitts!