A video of Mark from the MIT glass band playing a 15mm neon tube "Racket" I made for him. The basic premise is a bunch of stacked loop D loops with a bell on one end and some sort of reed or vibratey bit at the other. Then you pop with fire or drill out finger holes.

I can make em pretty quick- so when I broke one trying to modify it I just made another. I gotta get myself one of those bagpipe bamboo reeds- they look fun to play with.

It was fun acting as a glass luthier :). Vitreous sonic vistas!

I wanna make a color light sensitive oscillator for neon playing.

#glassschool #racket #instrument #reeds #craft #glass #handmade #pilchuck #seattle #pnw #MIT #brooklyn #instrument #music #baritone

A little video of Galen's finished "Slumlord" sign. I bent the neon for him, and some of his sign painter buddies helped with the paint design.

Galen wears the "Slumlord" badge with pride- refusing to raise rent on his property in the rapidly gentrifying Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma. The piece is inspired by another landlord with a coin operated gas meter on the stove (quarters for cooking time).

We love the clickity clackety of the mechanical incandescent bulb flasher in there- Galen mounted it so the whole metal "can" acts as an "amplifier". Galen loves anything mechanical. It was way fun being his Teachers Assistant for the class.

The ruby red glass in this came from Chihuly "Studio 1" in Tacoma (long since moved to Seattle)

#glassschool #Seattle #Tacoma #hilltop #pilchuck #neon #blinky #lightbulbs #incandescent #sign #landlord #glass #handmade #sculpture #gentrification #mechanical #airplane

I made this pink and yellow eclipse while at Pilchuck. I auctioned it off to an artist in Texas with the monies going to scholarships. It's probably the roundest I have made so far.

I made it without a pattern in the traditional sense, but rather a spreadsheet consisting of tube lengths I found by doing a little math with the circumference formula and then guesstimating the other side. I think it's really getting round!

The pink an yellow really complement each other well- on its own that yellow is kinda green- but the pink really warms it up without going too orangey. It's a really nice light.

I wanna put a sphere inside a sphere now :)

#neon #glassschool #eclipse #seattle #handmade #sculpture #lightart #sphere #spreadsheet #spiral #pnw #pink #yellow #glass

Wrapping up at Pilchuck and bouncing around Tacoma, Seattle for a day or two. Here is that 22mm borosilicate star I made. Brian Gillespie the Rhino torch maker got it at the auction party for scholarships an stuff.

I also made that eclipse and a purple an pink hand pulled phosphor coated color test.

The thick borosilicate is interesting... Makes me wanna get some of those oxygenated torches.

#neon #pyrex #borosilicate #star #glassschool #handmade #glass #22mm #thickwall #scientific #signage #jumbo

One of the instructors here, Brian Gillespie works at Rhino and 3D printed this surface mix gas oxygen torch from stainless steel.

It was fun getting to try it out. It heats nicely- the surface mix makes it much softer than a Carlisle. It basically won't liquify or burn the glass- but IS hot enough for bending, and is a pretty wide flame height (area).

The heavier wall borosilicate is interesting. Annoying that it may need to be annealed promptly, but it could be a bit more durable... And larger? I do love my soft glass (soda lime wall thickness about 1.75mm).

This is making me want to get the German surface mix ribbon burner. Expensive, but will probably last forever.

#borosilicate #test #glassschool #sculpture #glass #fire #torches #handmade

Some photos taken during the Glown Away Soiree the other night by Chris Barney the night watch.

I liked watching the bubbles float in front of the neon. Catching them floating in front was really tricky, so Chris floated a big bubble on the want and I held it in position.

Now I wanna have more of my work photographed in bubble! More colors please!

#bubble #neon #glassschool #summercamp #soiree #reflection #light #sculpture #seattle #art #glasscamp

Two days ago my friend Dani Kaes stopped by to give a pumping demo and a "stuffed tube" demo to the students. Basically Dani cuts a bunch of 10 and 12mm tubes up, cleans them with acetone or other solvent and then stuffs the little tube pieces inside another clear 15mm tube.
She processes them a little differently, using argon on the bombarder to gently heat the inner tubes, without getting the outer one too hot too quick and cracking things.

Its really neat shaking the stuffed tubes- their fill tubes rainbow jostle and jingle back an forth :)

Already seeing students scavenging for fancy color scraps to cut them into tiny pieces for stuffing :)

#glassschool #pilchuck #neon #glass #handmade #visitingartist #demo #rainbow #glass #sculpture #seattle #pnw #friends

We had a "Glown Away Soiree" last night at Glass School. Organized by a bunch of us teachers assistants. Lots of neon on frames around the fire pit- a bar, snacks and music.
I forgot to get photos of the neon frames and the nice glow they casted everywhere, but I DID get photos of my overserve prevention light- a pair of articulating- to scale diamond shears that I made two or so years ago here.

We are Soiree ing responsibly by setting the high voltage diamond shears in a puddle of water :). That bartender better see those tequila shot pours.

I keep making these party lights here thinking they will break on their first use- but most of them actually end up sticking around campus forever. Someone even dropped these on the concrete ground last night and they STILL didn't break!

#glassschool #pilchuck #soiree #glownaway #neon #tool #glassblowing #diamondshears #handmade #seattle #bartender #highvoltage #water #safety #glass

A little clip of our opening night "finale" after the MIT glass band played their horns. I bent "charms" for each of the class's instructors and got them done in half a day- in time for the opening night demo. 5 classes and neon red light with a high voltage animator- so naturally we went with a pentagram. A glassy high voltage pentagram of knowledge!

Also, the wifi is now "better" on campus thanks to some fiber ran into the woods. A few months ago I set up a Nextcloud server running at home that my photos back up to from my phone. I just realized that I can upload videos from Pilchuck to Mastodon straight from my home server! No need to clog the limited Pilchuck bandwidth

#pilchuck #glassschool #neon #performance #highvoltage #seattle #pny #sculpture #event #openingnight #wild #party #charms #flasher #blink #glass #homeserver #nextcloud