Blown Glass Fruit

Here are the products of our glassblowing experience last week. They are on display in the case in the MS lobby- come check them out!

Field Trip to Glassblowing Studio

I took my 8th grade Art class on a field trip to McFadden Art Glass yesterday to create blown glass fruit. They had such a great time experiencing glassblowing first hand, and really appreciated the challenging medium that they first learned about before creating their Chihuly-inspired chandelier recently.

After a short demo and some safety stuff, the kids dove right in to creating their own pieces! The first step involves gather some molten glass from the furnace onto a blowpipe, which is pretty much the only step the kids were not allowed to do. Here is a picture of Tim McFadden gathering for a student:

\

Next, students cooled the pipe in this contraption which is sort of like a big water fountain and just makes the pipe more comfortable to hold and touch:

The next step is to choose the colors for the piece you're making and to press pieces of powdered glass frit into your molten glass:

Next, you reheat the glass in this furnace in order to get the frit to melt into the clear glass (you actually also need to reheat the glass this way a few times in the process of making the piece if it gets too cool to work with):

Now the glass is rolled on the surface of this metal table to help maintain it's shape and get it nice and even:

After getting a nice shape, Tim blew/trapped a small air bubble in the pipe in order to force it into the middle of the glass, which is the start of getting it ready to blow bigger. It's cool to watch the small bubble appear and expand the glass:

A few kids created pumpkins, and at this point, they blew a little air into the pipe while holding their piece in a metal mold with ribs around it, leaving the ribbed pattern on the outside of the glass:

The glass is heated again and it's time to shape it at the bench. At this point, a helper comes to sit at the end of the blow pipe and gently blows air in, while the student working on the piece uses various tools to shape and pinch the glass. The pipe has to remain constantly spinning to prevent the glass from dripping to the floor, so the person blowing is moving back and forth with the pipe- multitasking! 

 Once the piece is blown large enough and shaped the desired way, it is removed from the pipe and sits on this little metal cup. Tim gathers a tiny amount of glass on another rod and the stems/leaves of the fruits are added:

Once the stem is detached, a blow torch is used to soften the end that was snipped, so that it's not really sharp when it cools down. I think the kids like using the blow torch a little TOO much!

Once finished, the glass pieces are put in an annealing oven which is set to about 900 degrees and programmed to cool slooooooowly overnight. If the glass were to be left out in the air, it would cool too rapidly and shatter! So, I won't be able to pick up the pieces till next week most likely, but stay tuned for pics of the final products!!

Chihuly Inspired Chandelier

Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor who was born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington. He was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.

Today, Dale Chihuly’s work is included in more than 200 hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including eleven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Chihuly has created more than a dozen well-known series of works, among them Cylinders and Baskets in the 1970s; Seaforms, Macchia, Venetians, and Persians in the 1980s; Niijima Floats and Chandeliers in the 1990s; and Fiori in the 2000s. He is also celebrated for large architectural installations.

Eighth grade art students learned about glass as a medium for art and the life and work of Dale Chihuly as an introduction to their field trip to the glassblowing studio (which is next week). To create this collaborative chandelier, students used colored permanent markers to decorate regular plastic drinking cups. The cups were melted in a toaster oven to create individual glass-like forms, which were combined to create the installation piece. (I originally saw this idea on Pinterest... isn't Pinterest ridiculous?! It actually freaks me out a little how many projects from my blog are pinned, but it's also pretty cool too!)

Before:

  During:

After (the chandelier is installed in the lower lobby of the middle school):

I like that when you walk down the hall from the Atrium, past the Art Room, you see the piece through the window in the wall :)

Fine Arts Festival!

Every year, several area private middle schools participate in the Traveling Art Show. The Art teachers of each school involved create five display boards of exemplary middle school artwork to show off to the other schools. The 2013 show circulated through the schools (Calvert, Bryn Mawr, Gilman, RPCS, Friends, Boy’s Latin and St. Paul’s) between January and April. This year, the show culminated at Bryn Mawr this past Wednesday with the Fine Arts Festival (a tradition dating back to 1992). Each school sends groups to perform, and all of the artists involved in the Traveling Art Show attend as well. Their artwork is featured once again in a slideshow during the performances. Here are some photos from the Festival!

Artists waiting for the show to begin

Bryn Mawr's hand bell group

RPCS choir

Gilman's String Ensemble 

Roland Park Public performs scenes from Peter Pan

Calvert performs scenes from Hood: The Musical

St Paul's School choir