glass class
Sep. 18th, 2010 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138I've now lost count of how many lampwork classes I've gone to, though I could probably recover the tally from my checkbook register. I'm enjoying them, but I'm not quite sure what long-term goals I have, if any.
There's the nominal carrot of making my own cadmium/uranium-glass focal beads, or even magatama on a mandrel, but really those aren't economically practical applications. At the most recent gem/bead show I went to, imported lampwork glass was being sold for shockingly low prices, even in the retail section. (One of these days I'll get a wholesale permit. Maybe.) I don't know whether the overseas lampworkers are paid by the hour or by the piece, but whatever it is, it can't be more than a few pennies per unit. I also have gnawing doubts about the safety of their working conditions. In general, their results are visibly inferior to the showcase pieces I've seen from individual artisans, but not enough to offset a hard-nosed cost/benefit ratio for routine usage as components.
(And besides, I still need to follow through with the full-time guy at the glass workshop who programmed some magatama cuts into his CAD system for me earlier this year; the results needed some fire-polishing in the kiln the last time I talked to him about it, which was months ago.)
...which I don't think is what I'm getting at, whatever that is. I'm accumulating a small hoard of interesting beads (some in the sense of having a winning personality and a great sense of humor, once you really get to know them), but the tangible results aren't really the point of this ramble, if it has one.
It's possible that aside from the (very strong) immediate enjoyment of large open flames and hot glass, I'm mainly interested in relatively incidental elements of the class: a non-programmed form of non-demanding social interaction(*); a new skill set that I can learn by myself with objective, tangible feedback on my progress; the conversion of tenuous theoretical abstractions into a solid practical framework. I *am* moderately gleeful at having found and identified the cadmium glass rods in the class supplies, and slowly working out appealing combinations for them... which may fall into multiple overlapping categories.
(*: which in this case simply equates to being in a small group of people who are talking to each other. I usually don't have anything to contribute except for random and possibly misinformed geekish infodumps. I did bring in a commercial bead back in the spring and asked the instructor how it was made; he looked at it and then made a replica in the torch, which other students watched and then made their own versions. I started to make my own attempt, but it went wrong early on and I ditched the concept for a more random approach. I should probably try that again at some point, though.)
I do know that I feel faintly appalled whenever some of my classmates ask our instructor to make a small component for them to use. He seems perfectly happy to do it, and obviously they don't have a problem with asking him... but in some way it offends my vague notions of forethought and self-sufficiency. Not that I'm terribly good at either of those on general principle, but a.) making a stringer or a multicolored twistie seems like a fundamentally basic skill (I've started to do them as warm-ups until I feel balanced enough to grab a mandrel); b.) if I get to a point where I've got molten glass in the flame and I haven't pre-made a particular thingamabob that I'd really like to add to it, then I'll figure that it's my own damn fault and do without that thingamabob; c.) I have minimal design-planning skills anyway, and usually operate by assembling a pile of interesting possible components and semi-randomly combining them until they either look good together or I can't stand the process anymore.
(There are exceptions. They generally feel like painful slogging, esp. in a commission project that's gone on for too long.)
OTOH, I could be throwing away perfectly good design opportunities by not asking for legitimate help... but mid-process, I just don't think that way.
If anything, some of the most active elements have been indirect and outside the class, by making me hunt down, special-order, and attempt to comprehend fairly technical books that kick my brain cell into higher gear. But that doesn't really have to do with physically going to 4-6 hour class sessions on a semi-regular basis, as opposed to buying independent studio time from the workshop whwnever I want to (though I'd have to buy my own safety glasses and other supplies and wrangle their gas canisters), or conversely, continuing to go at all.
Or it could be one of those things where it's time to kick myself to stop worrying about why or whether I should be enjoying something, and just let myself have the goddamn fun.
(...there is a certain conflict between lampwork classes and eBay, in that time/money sunk into the former might have otherwise been funnelled into the latter, and unless I can figure out a more efficient way to convert my lampwork beads to value-added product sales, it's never going to be properly recouped. But as I said, possibly time to shut up and enjoy it. And also steel myself to reduce my bead stash before it takes over more of the house I just placed *two* new orders for Czech beads this week argh.)
There's the nominal carrot of making my own cadmium/uranium-glass focal beads, or even magatama on a mandrel, but really those aren't economically practical applications. At the most recent gem/bead show I went to, imported lampwork glass was being sold for shockingly low prices, even in the retail section. (One of these days I'll get a wholesale permit. Maybe.) I don't know whether the overseas lampworkers are paid by the hour or by the piece, but whatever it is, it can't be more than a few pennies per unit. I also have gnawing doubts about the safety of their working conditions. In general, their results are visibly inferior to the showcase pieces I've seen from individual artisans, but not enough to offset a hard-nosed cost/benefit ratio for routine usage as components.
(And besides, I still need to follow through with the full-time guy at the glass workshop who programmed some magatama cuts into his CAD system for me earlier this year; the results needed some fire-polishing in the kiln the last time I talked to him about it, which was months ago.)
...which I don't think is what I'm getting at, whatever that is. I'm accumulating a small hoard of interesting beads (some in the sense of having a winning personality and a great sense of humor, once you really get to know them), but the tangible results aren't really the point of this ramble, if it has one.
It's possible that aside from the (very strong) immediate enjoyment of large open flames and hot glass, I'm mainly interested in relatively incidental elements of the class: a non-programmed form of non-demanding social interaction(*); a new skill set that I can learn by myself with objective, tangible feedback on my progress; the conversion of tenuous theoretical abstractions into a solid practical framework. I *am* moderately gleeful at having found and identified the cadmium glass rods in the class supplies, and slowly working out appealing combinations for them... which may fall into multiple overlapping categories.
(*: which in this case simply equates to being in a small group of people who are talking to each other. I usually don't have anything to contribute except for random and possibly misinformed geekish infodumps. I did bring in a commercial bead back in the spring and asked the instructor how it was made; he looked at it and then made a replica in the torch, which other students watched and then made their own versions. I started to make my own attempt, but it went wrong early on and I ditched the concept for a more random approach. I should probably try that again at some point, though.)
I do know that I feel faintly appalled whenever some of my classmates ask our instructor to make a small component for them to use. He seems perfectly happy to do it, and obviously they don't have a problem with asking him... but in some way it offends my vague notions of forethought and self-sufficiency. Not that I'm terribly good at either of those on general principle, but a.) making a stringer or a multicolored twistie seems like a fundamentally basic skill (I've started to do them as warm-ups until I feel balanced enough to grab a mandrel); b.) if I get to a point where I've got molten glass in the flame and I haven't pre-made a particular thingamabob that I'd really like to add to it, then I'll figure that it's my own damn fault and do without that thingamabob; c.) I have minimal design-planning skills anyway, and usually operate by assembling a pile of interesting possible components and semi-randomly combining them until they either look good together or I can't stand the process anymore.
(There are exceptions. They generally feel like painful slogging, esp. in a commission project that's gone on for too long.)
OTOH, I could be throwing away perfectly good design opportunities by not asking for legitimate help... but mid-process, I just don't think that way.
If anything, some of the most active elements have been indirect and outside the class, by making me hunt down, special-order, and attempt to comprehend fairly technical books that kick my brain cell into higher gear. But that doesn't really have to do with physically going to 4-6 hour class sessions on a semi-regular basis, as opposed to buying independent studio time from the workshop whwnever I want to (though I'd have to buy my own safety glasses and other supplies and wrangle their gas canisters), or conversely, continuing to go at all.
Or it could be one of those things where it's time to kick myself to stop worrying about why or whether I should be enjoying something, and just let myself have the goddamn fun.
(...there is a certain conflict between lampwork classes and eBay, in that time/money sunk into the former might have otherwise been funnelled into the latter, and unless I can figure out a more efficient way to convert my lampwork beads to value-added product sales, it's never going to be properly recouped. But as I said, possibly time to shut up and enjoy it. And also steel myself to reduce my bead stash before it takes over more of the house I just placed *two* new orders for Czech beads this week argh.)