2012-02-06T06:40:00.000-08:00

Amy Waldman-Smith

Let me introduce myself. I am Amy Waldman-Smith, a lampworker from theToronto area. It is my great pleasure tobe a guest blogger here on the Nortel Blog.

I just got back from a week long class atCorning. Corning is well known for glass(that is where Corningware comes from, among other things). They have the most amazing glass museum andfantastic studios. You can take allsorts of glass classes at Corning. WhenI was there three separate classes were running. Glass casting, glass blowing andflamework. They have tons of otherclasses offered throughout the year – mosaics, fusing, coldworking, all taughtby world class teachers.

The class that I got into was called Fiore e Angeli (Flowers and Angels)taught by both Paul Stankard and Lucio Bubacco. Each is a master of his craft. Paul Stankard is known worldwide for his paperweights and Lucio Bubaccomakes the most amazing figures out of soft glass.

Oneof the great things about Corning these days is that they are running livestreaming of certain classes (one per week) on Wednesdays from 11 am to aboutnoon. This gives you a chance to see thestudio in action and to actually check out a teacher and see how they reallyteach. Kind of a sneak preview. These are live streamed through http://www.ustream.tv/channel/studio-demos and Corning also has a youtube pagewhere the videos are also uploaded so you can always watch them later, or againand again if that tickles your fancy.

Thefocus of the class I took was flowers and angels – small creations and somefigure work and also casting these into glass panels. I was really keen to play in the hotshop. We needed help of course. But after making bits and pieces we all wentinto the hot shop and got to create a panel with the help of the Corningstaff. Ladling 2300 degree glass into panelsis not something you want to do with no experience!

Hereare some photos that I took. The firstis the pieces of a collaborative piece that Paul and Lucio created. Paul did the eye (a beautiful little flower)and Lucio did the rest of the face pieces.

Fritwas placed in the metal frame, then a first layer of hot glass was pouredin. The face pieces were quickly placedon top of the hot glass and then a second layer of glass was added.

Aftercooling slightly the frame is removed, the bottom tidied up with a really bigflame and then the whole thing gets popped into the annealer for a really,really long time.

Corningclasses are run by lottery. You mustsubmit your application and then wait (on pins and needles) to see if you arechosen for your first pick of classes. It was well worth the wait. Classesrun for January and February and again during the summer. There are weekend classes you can attend aswell. It is only about a five hour carride from Toronto. I already have my eyeon a weekend glass blowing class for the spring and I am already lookingforward to seeing the winter schedule so I can attend for another class in2013.

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