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

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 glass "racket" I made for Mark in the MIT glass band. I was going for Bari Racket and I sure achieved it- 15mm glass at about 8 feet of tubing coiled up.

Next I wanna make a tenor racket- maybe 10mm and 5 feet of tubing. A reed or mouthpiece is attached with some rubber tubing and fingers can play the finger holes. It's a neat instrument.

I am learning to be a glass luthier :)

#glasscamp #pilchuck #music #glass #instument #handmade #tester #fabrication #seattle #wind #sound #sculpture #luthier

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

The class I helped teach was about making beer signs- I never had made the metal frames before and I liked the idea of a "murdered out" #beersign . #Steel is for real! The hand pulled black tubing is fun and funky- would love to rebend it with 8mm effetre #blacklight perfection!
The Dis Mis Mal Information Arrow... it's also kind of an #information #rocketship with animating flames when placed upright.

#neon #neonsign #misinformation #sculpture #art #pilchuck #murderedout #allblack #lightart