Blown Glass Pumpkins

My 8th grade class took a field trip on Tuesday to McFadden Art Glass in Baltimore where we had an amazing time making blown glass pumpkins. The kids were involved in every step of the creation process and they had a terrific experience, as usual. Here are some pics of the process, followed by the final pieces- enjoy!

Tim McFadden demonstrated the creation of a piece from start to finish as the class intently watched:

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 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:

Then, after another reheating, the glass is dropped into this star-shaped mold and blown into again, creating the textured pumpkin-like ribs:

Students then worked at the bench to shape the piece further and pinch it with these big tweezers to create the top:

Meanwhile, a friend is helping out at the end of the pipe by blowing additional air into it to make the pumpkin larger (also 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, rolled in colored frit and is heated by a friend- this small gather will become the stem of the pumpkin. The pumpkin is detached from the pipe and the stem is attached and twirled around... 

The last step is to use a blowtorch to soften the sharp end of the stem and attach it to the pumpkin body!

 

The pieces are put in an annealing oven overnight so they can slowly cool (cooling too fast = shattering glass). I was able to get the pumpkins the following afternoon and they are absolutely beautiful on display in the showcase in the main lobby...

Figure Collages after Miriam Schapiro

Miriam Schapiro (born 1923), became a professional artist in 1955, originally painting in the Abstract Expressionist style (like Jackson Pollock did). As she developed her art and expanded her vision, she developed her own personal style and became a pioneer in the Feminist Art Movement in the early 1970s. Schapiro eventually introduced the element of fabric collage into her artwork, cutting pieces of patterned cloth and combining them with acrylic paint to create a beautifully orchestrated symphony of pattern and color. Schapiro, along with another artist named Melissa Meyer, coined the term "femmage" to apply to their type of collage art which utilizes commonplace materials and techniques that historically have been associated with domesticity, and therefore with women: quilts, buttons, sequins, tea towels, embroidery, lace, crochet, carpets, and fabric design. Schapiro is one of the first artists in history to make art addressing the feminine experience.

Schapiro’s 1989 book, Rondo, contains a colorful accordion foldout with a string of highly animated dancing figures, using collage as a medium. None of the works rely on “drawing”- the drawing is done with scissors. In this project, fifth grade artists created Rondo-like collages of their own. They first created colorful background papers using bleeding tissue paper, watercolor and salt. After discussing body proportion, students chose a dancing pose or posed their figure performing an activity they enjoy. Various papers, fabric, wallpaper scraps and other textiles were layered to create the final pieces. First, a few pics of the artists at work:

And the colorful collages:

Coiled Pottery in progress

Seventh graders are busy in the art room creating organic coiled vessels from clay... Each piece is unique and interesting! More explanation to come when the final post goes up (the pots will take a while to dry and be fired the first time before being glazed and fired again), but I wanted to share these few action shots from today:

Observational Pumpkin Drawings in Charcoal

The last project that sixth graders created this quarter was their first observational drawing in their middle school experience (oh, there will be more!). They spent several days learning and practicing how to draw what they see before them, rather than drawing the pumpkin "symbols" they are used to drawing in childhood (perfect circle, lines from top to bottom, stem right on top... you know what I mean, right?!). Each student had their own unique little pumpkins- I tried to choose interesting ones with different stems and also got white ones so that the shadows and highlights were a little more "black and white" (pun intended) to these newbie observational artists. Then, once they completed a contour line drawing of their still life arrangement, we turned out the lights and put spotlights on the pumpkins to create better highlights and shadows and rendered the drawings with charcoal pencil...

Here are the mini masterpieces!