Category: Glass Resource Exchange Archive

Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: The Economics of Flameworking

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
The Economics of Flameworking
November 3, 2022 7PM EDT
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat.
Each bullet point represents a comment by a participant.  

What do you make and who is your audience?
  • Jewelry:
    • Jewelry for the contemporary jewelry collector market and people who like large jewelry 
    • Make jewelry, trying to make things I haven’t really seen before, like unusual glass beads and chains
    • Production jewelry, which has a specific audience (ex. production implosion pendants) and contemporary jewelry
    • Make marbles and implosion pendants. Popular as far as jewelry goes, and a great way to get your stuff out there in the world
    • I’ve done beads and bead shows, did jewelry for many years
  • Fabrication/consultation:
    • Consulting for shipping and crating of glass (particularly delicate and flameworked items)
    • Fabrication for other artists (contemporary art world) 
    • Spent a year making chains for Calvin Klein’s runway shows
    • Make prep for other artists who use glass parts in mixed media sculpture 
    • Fabrication for artists. The audience is the contemporary artist, or whoever their audience is, and that’s a bigger part of my income stream
  • Gig work:
    • Pretty common to diversify your income stream
    • Glass adjacent gigs: public speaking, lecturing and teaching as an advocate for flameworking. All paid work. Audience largely institutional. 
    • I’ve been a gig worker for 25 years; lots of different income streams that are all flameworking related or adjacent
  • Pipes:
    • Making pipes to bring in side-money, because renting time in the hot shop was expensive and I didn’t have access.
    • First Fridays in downtown LA, setting up a table and selling pipes.
    • I would do some consignment at pipe shops, and then also I was just hitting people up on the streets and asking hey are you interested in some glass
    • “Making pipes for a side hustle.”
  • I am doing a lot of stuff around flameworking that I guess a lot of people don’t get involved with.
    • Would say my audience is myself, at this point, because I am really just interested in exploring the medium.
    • I do a lot of research and development, material science, trying to figure out and understand glass. I write up some of the stuff that I come up with so that other people can tread and hopefully use as a jumping off point.
    • Flameworking ceramics and glass 
  • Teach glass and other things
  • In grad school for illustration and making dioramas of handmade glass and laser cut textiles that I’m photographing to illustrate children’s books I’ve written 
  • Sculptures and performance art with flameworking. Try to make my work accessible — the audience is the general public. Wanted to foster a wider entry point to glass.
  • Including bits and pieces that are sculpted on the torch to use in my larger sculptures made in the hotshop
  • Reusing glass from the hotshop to then repurpose and potentially making a product line
  • Make work resembling plants, succulents, coral, etc.
  • I worked at REI, and used to make snails with little pins on them and would sell these to my fellow employees at work. 
  • Scientific glassworking:
    • I work in Research and development in Silicon Valley and that really set me up for where I am now- I have a corporate scientific job with Bruce Suba as my mentor doing glass to metal seals. That set me up to now be in a position to just make my own work for fun, to just be an artist. 
    • Scientific glassworking = flameworking for a living. Getting paid to practice your skills that you can then use for your side hustles. 
    • I still have my own (flameworking) business since the 70s, but I also do scientific apparatus and that gives me the ability to do whatever I want. 
  • My husband and I run a glass art studio in British Columbia. It’s about building a community and learning what the community needs from you as a flameworker. Just find your niche within that.
    • My husband did a lot of goblets. We started teaching and building a community who appreciated art. 
    • We moved to a town of about 5000 people, going from doing big art shows to communicating directly with our customers, with walk-in traffic to our shop. Now we are dealing with distributors (pipes) 
    • Many revenue streams: we do scientific repair for local University, we do upcycled glass work from recycled bottles into reusable goods, pipes, that are sold mostly through distributors and the big trade shows.
  • Podcasting:
    • I do a podcast (Taming Lightning) where I talk about neon and plasma. Skill sets are in the hotshop, but I also use flameworking principles to get a better overall seal in the hotshop and find ways I can use that in the flame shop as well.
    • Podcasting and lecturing as a glass adjacent income stream
    • Provide content for a YouTube producer to make a glassblowing YouTube show (Gather Glass with Wildfire) to educate the audience and community. Doesn’t really make money, but increases exposure. Started with a podcast, then a live show, now it’s monthly. Doing an interview with Marble Slinger who has a new movie coming out. Crosspollinate with other artists and producers. 
  • Recently working on a commission for plasma chops, cups were fabricated, and I filled them with gasses. People reach out to me from IG, Facebook, etc.
  • Portable glassblowing studio that we take into the community to demonstrate and share about glassblowing and flameworking and what we do.
  • “Recycled glass production line.” 
  • “Servicing other studios”
  • Started with selling stuff out of my trunk, but I realized that I didn’t want to live this way.
How have things changed for those of you who have been working through the last few years? Has there been a shift from in person to online? Has anybody had to find new audiences for their work and pivot in the last few years?
  • Impact of COVID-19:
    • When COVID hit there was a huge drop and supply chain issues, getting flameworking supplies and glass was difficult because color comes from the US so it is hard to be competitive with pricing. 
    • During COVID, we lost the ability to connect with our customers, people were not hanging out and sharing glass, that’s what the cannabis community is all about. 
    • When teaching went online it was an opportunity for students to learn about the history of glass. It really opened my mind up. I had everyone look at the history of painting, and look at the glass in paintings, and tell me how the glass was made.
    • During COVID we had to build out communities, both in person and online. Online we can connect with a global audience.
  • YouTube, TikTok, Livestreaming:
    • More and more folks are monetizing their YouTube channel, or live streaming, doing more income generating activities with social media and connecting with their audiences to sell their work through the internet. 
    • I started making TikTok videos – TikTok reached out to me to make educational videos during the pandemic. So I started making glass-related content for the general public as an audience. It has become a significant source of income for me. 
    • For a while it seemed like IG reels were paying a lot of money (“quit your day job’ money) TikTok tried to compete by paying creators. As a creator, I’m trying to take advantage of the giant companies competing with each other. 
    • Making content generates a significant amount of income, and also keeps your audience engaged, and potentially opportunities to sell your work. 
    • For the long run, I think YouTube has more potential for monetization
    • Live streams can be a good source of income, and people will send you gifts and flowers, products, etc.
  • I’ve been talking about shifting towards online, but I was going in that direction anyways. 
  • I did the UrbanGlass hotline where I talked about plasma, and combined a lecture and demonstration. I find that because of how spread out people are in neon and plasma, I have almost no choice but to reach people through online references. 
  • @surfratglass at a previous meeting shared how he pivoted during the pandemic to find a new audience and ended up monetizing his IG account and creating content that way by live streaming and making videos. 
  • The possibility of making objects to sell, but then also being able to monetize that time you are making by having a live stream. 
  • Most of my work is going through a gallery or through a couple of art fairs that I do locally, but by galleries recently retired. I’m looking to get more things on. My online shop. 
Financing Your Art Practice
  • Having a day job, like teaching or fabrication, takes the economic pressure off my art
  • You really need to do what you love and finance it somehow
  • Saving and planning ahead:
    • Spent over a decade in tech, managed to save up enough to not have to rely on making working in the glass sustainable
    • Interesting stuff not going to be sustainable in the beginning — so maybe finding some way to make the money beforehand
  • Last year, saved up and took on a bunch of work so that this year I could take more creative risks and build a new audience with my own sculpture. I would put that in the research and development category.
How do you price your work, content or services? Do you have a formula that you use? Do you just feel it out depending on what the market is doing?
  • For production: think of an hourly minimum rate you want to make, then build in the cost of materials.
    • Develop a calculator: consider how much to pay yourself hourly, whether to hire an assistant, think through the steps to complete the project and estimate the time needed to complete the project.
    • If you work at an institution, factor in studio rental.
    • When selling art, look at what other people are doing for pricing info.
    • For fabrication and consulting: Add 20% for overhead, labor, materials (include shipping)
  • For commissions, customs, fabrication, or services:
    • There’s a lot of R&D involved, there’s email communication, documenting and sending pictures of the progress. 
    • Sometimes clients have a fixed budget, like funding or grants from a museum
    • Find someone doing something similar, consider developing a mentorship
    • When fabricating or doing commissions, I am not doing the selling or marketing. When making my own work, I have to accommodate marketing. So I use a higher overhead because I’m wearing more hats as an artist than as a fabricator.
    • Repairs on a piece can be difficult to estimate (time and cost) if there are too many unknown variables, or if I’m asked to do something that is out of my wheelhouse. In those cases, start with a bigger number because project management is involved. 
    • Add in travel and build it into your contract. Include lodging.
    • Also set down some boundaries. I.E. Make sure they have all the parts first before you travel for install so you’re not wasting your time.
  • Value of mentorship:
    • For a service I call “Technical Consultation” where I go service a manifold and organize an institution’s setup. Rusty Russo helped me first establish an hourly rate ($45/hr).
  • Pricing artwork/jewelry and research:
    • For sculpture in the fine art market, there are some price breaks to know about. Small sculptures (under $3000) start here first. Once you’ve sold in that range, try $3000 to $5000, then $5000 to $10,000. Different collectors in each range. Galleries and art fairs use this pricing structure. 
    • Research who your peers/competitors are, and consider what the market will bear. Look at whose work is selling and for what in different venues like galleries and art fairs. A little bit of market research will take you a long way.
    • With contemporary jewelry, knowing your client and their price ranges so that you can make sure you’re marketing to the right client with your price point. 
    • What does the landscape of the market look like that you are trying to enter? Helps to be realistic about your price point (and confident about it, too.) If you’re not getting a good response to the work, it will be easier to troubleshoot because either your prices are out of whack, or it’s the wrong market for you.
    • Donating your work to auctions can be a good research tool to see what people will be willing to pay for a specific piece (can be incredibly valuable info)
    • I saw on an IG story an implosion pendant similar to mine going for double the price that I was selling at and decided to up my prices in my Etsy store. Learning what the market will bear is a valuable insight.
  • Give yourself a buffer (of a few hundred $) if you need to reschedule or redo something
  • I don’t make pieces as a commodity, and don’t want to put that pressure on this specific work. Tricky to price my performance art/sculpture because there are hundreds of hours on a piece. Ex: an object that is used on the body in a performance, that will be exhibited with the video performance — the price becomes a kind of token of the burden. 
  • To survive: I teach, do production and fabrication. These income streams support my personal art practice which takes up an equal amount of time. 
  • Not everybody is your client, and it’s really important to be able to separate yourself from your work, because it can get emotional when for example, with jewelry a client says “I love your work, but it’s way too expensive for me.” Consider the possibility that your prices may be fine, but this may not be your client/audience for the work. 
  • When work sells at auction, contact the buyer because that adds to your audience.
  • The 10% rule: If you have a business, you should always have sales goals. If you meet your yearly goal, then you raise your prices by 10%. When you raise your prices, you can expect to lose 10% of your clients, who are not able to grow with you. But you will still make the same amount of money. This is one way to build your business by elevating the value of your products incrementally based on sales performance. 
  • “This might be from my esoteric position, but if I focus on economics, I find that it constrains what I can do too much. In order to take into account the economics means that I have to focus on a larger/popular audience… and I am not really interested in either consuming or producing things for that. My interests are very niche, and in order to be in that area, I cannot maximize economics. Those things seem to be mutually exclusive”
How do you handle extras/seconds that are nice but aren’t selling?
  • Should we try to employ the bartering system more?
    • Barter the seconds, buy the firsts.
    • “The barter system is alive and well! I supplement my $ income with bartering.”
  • Seconds sales online:
    • Saw another glass artist live on TikTok doing a studio cleanout sale, everything was around $5. Use the chat to buy, artist will ship it to you. 
    • Doing a clean out sale on social media – you don’t know who is watching.
    • Tempted to do online sales and would love to sell to my friends for cheap, but worried about degrading my prices.
  • Ideas and concerns about selling/promotion:
    • Open house in our studio once a year — that’s the only time we put out the seconds. Connecting with people face to face shows dedication if client’s are willing to show up for the seconds sale.
    • Hide and Seek:
      • Hide your seconds in a park and take a picture to post online so someone can find it – stash and dash, geotagging.
      • Doing Hide and Seek and connecting with people online are about building community, and in turn, hopefully those people will buy your work. Also it helps value your product by boosting your visibility in the algorithm and linking and sharing your account with other people. All of these are marketing tools that we now have at our fingertips.
    • Hosting a dinner party and charging an entry fee and everyone can take an object home with them. 
  • I’ll sell it to a friend for cheap, or give it away if it’s the difference between keeping it or throwing it away. 
  • I destroy the seconds because after I’m gone they might become mixed up with the firsts. We don’t have control over what our legacy is. 
  • I’ll cannibalize pieces and reconfigure them into new pieces of jewelry
  • Being a glassworker, and having to deal with storage of first quality work, in addition to seconds. 
  • Electrician working on my house bought a piece from me. I was excited because it was not my regular audience. I also bartered with the HVAC guy and made him a set of elephants.
  • Recycling glass in a vitreograph kiln – making cane for bead makers, vitreograph paintings. All glass is recyclable, people!
  • “Glass collage”
  • “Brooklyn Glass! Hot Glass Cold Beer!”
Digital Income Streams
  • Cameo App:
    • Pay celebrities/personalities for short custom messages.
    • Could it be an educational tool? On-demand educational videos, or tech support. An information sharing opportunity for custom glass videos. 
  • Rights to content:
    • Consider if you are giving exclusive rights to your content or video.
    • Are you letting a big platform repost your videos for free? That allows others to profit from your content if their account is monetized.
    • Consider a Sole Licensing agreement, where you license rights to your content, but still retain rights to use it yourself as well.
    • I can change the content slightly and license it, or just recreate the content. 
  • “Would this be the time to bring up the issue of how the net is pretty much dominated by a handful of companies, and have enormous amounts of influence on what gets seen and not seen? I feel like depending on these platforms to stay sustainable is a risky bet”
What professional practices topics are important right now?
  • In college, I learned how to make a business card and a resume. The niches of how to make a living never came up.
    • How do you keep up your social media? If you’re not into that, how do you develop a relationship with galleries?
    • How do you enter into a market?
    • What are the different types of markets?
    • How do you balance the right level of professional persona and also personal persona for the internet? How do you seem like a real person but also cultivate your own brand?
    • Teaching people how to be fluid with technology.
    • How to write a cover letter 
    • “I’m constantly surprised when artists don’t understand some tech standards… file formats, jpg tiff png, along with formatted text documents as MS word docs instead of standards like PDF”
  • Documentation:
    • “I finally started to hire people to document exhibitions and it makes such a huge difference. I attribute those images to getting me additional opportunities. So definitely worth the money in the end.
    • Can you use the barter system to have a friend take pictures for you? Documentation is everything.
  • I think it’s important to think about how we are using energy.
    • There is just so much waste and we need to get a hold of that. Glass is an incredibly recyclable material. Are we using it to its fullest potential?
    • What is the right COE for what you are trying to do? Where are we setting our torches? What torch?
    • What is the lowest temperature you can go to create what you want to make? Ex: murrini could be COE 96 or 104 instead of 33.
  • Personal energy and the economics of personal time.
    • How are you spending your time? Do we have to do everything ourselves, or can we delegate? Recognizing when there is a huge learning curve that could be overcome by bringing in a collaborator, jobbing out a task. (tech, photography, etc.) When to spend the money.
    • You don’t have to do everything yourself, especially as your business grows 
    • Don’t waste your time reinventing the wheel — pay a professional to get it done.
    • Ex: Paying for a good photo of your work can then allow you to access more opportunities, and you are also supporting another artist (photographer)
    • Making things with intent (building things that are useful and thoughtful) as a way of talking about energy management.
Media Training
  • Media training used to be done by PR firms in preparation for publicly representing an art center in the media, especially on live television, and in interviews where you are representing an institution. An extension of public speaking.
    • Handy for podcasting and lecturing
    • Also helpful for more spontaneous events, like receiving an award, where you set the tone and language with your audience.
  • Social media, live streaming, “dos and don’ts” 
  • When asked a question, repeat the question in your answer to provide context
How does the impact of economics affect your studio practice?
  • Material costs, cost of gas, inflation
  • Flameworking is one of the most economic forms of hot glass working with much less overhead than other forms of hot glass working. 
  • My middle range of sales haven’t been great, but the lesser priced items do well and the higher priced items do well. So, I’m better off spending my time cutting out the mid range and focusing on the top and bottom of the markets. 
  • Starting a flameworking studio at home to offset costs and increase access to hot glass so I can make things in the $45-75 range, and I can sell a lot of those and they don’t take much time to make. Also, I can prep flameworked parts ahead of time to be used on bigger work in the hotshop. 
NFTs and energy usage
  • NFTs as an alternative to print
    • Make glass lenses that I use on my camera to make digital images. Rather than making them into a physical print, I opted to make them into NFTs so they can stay in the digital realm.
    • Making a tool to generate art: I can blow one lens and use that to make an infinite amount of images.
  • Carbon footprint:
    • Rarible platform allows you to list an NTF for sale, but with no blockchain activity until a sales transaction takes place. This way I can minimize the energy usage up front and be more intentional about how energy is used.
    • Joe Lee did some research and calculated that the gas usage for minting one NFT is about equal to firing two ceramic kilns. Translating into glassmaker and ceramic terminology.
  • Projecting NFTs:
    • I like the idea that it doesn’t have a physical format but can exist into the physical world through projection. I’ve been projecting them onto sculptures. 
  • NFTs have not been fruitful for me monetarily, but have been useful in community building. Value in opportunities to generate conversation.
  • Proof of stake and proof of work on the blockchain
    • “tezos is proof of stake, and very low energy”
Is there an investment (i.e. a piece of stock/tool) you’ve made that you regret?
  • Tools:
    • I’ve bought more pairs of grabbers than I will ever need. 
    • At what point are you just collecting tools?
    • A butter knife is gonna give you the same result (as a fancy tool). My favorite tool is my housemate’s butter knife. 
    • Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
  • Conferences:
    • At conferences, I always buy the same colors and then never use them. Specifically, it’s a black glass that turns rainbow when you melt it. Apparently I am seduced by this color when shopping in person.
    • India green, it was super cheap at a conference. It is super ugly though. Now that it is out of production is it worth $$
  • I hoard color and tools I’ll never use, just to collect.
  • I think mine would be more like patternmaking. There’s this old type of pattern that neon people use that has fiberglass elements to it. It is noxious, and smells when you use it. Paper and a wire screen is all I need.
  • “I have some lead paint powder”
Relevant Links
Additional Points
  • If you are just starting out selling your work, reaching out to your community is a great way to start. People want to support you. Start small and local, branch out from there. 
  • Hustle is like your building community, it’s you connecting with people, and that’s eventually going to be the people who carry you to where you want to be with glass. 
  • “Support your contemporaries too by sharing their work, there are no competitors. When it comes back, they will think of you.”

BACK TO TOP

LINK TO RESOURCE (GOOGLE DOC)

Last updated: 1/4/23

Sonic Level for Glassblowing (Punty Level)

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

Want a tool for beginners struggling to keep pipes/punties level? Ken Flanagan developed the punty level as a glassblowing teaching aid for Professor Helen Lee at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A student is holding a glassblowing punty with a pink level sensor attached near the back of the pipe.

This tool emits a tone based on the degree of deviation from the level plane. It is loud enough to hear over the ambient noise in the hot shop. It attaches to a pipe/punty with a 3D-printed clamp that can accept a large range of different pipe/punty diameters. The hinges are printed in place, meaning that there is no assembly once the print is complete (other than the electronics).

To minimize awkwardness for the gaffer, the punty level is quite small and can easily be mounted on the far end of the pipe/punty. It is secured with a rubber band.

For ease of replication, there is a GitHub page for the project (including instructions in the wiki) and a Thingiverse part for the 3D-printed clamp.

LINK TO RESOURCE

Resource submitted by Ken Flanagan

Fluxus Resource List

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

A list of links to resources about Fluxus including exhibitions, books, press releases, websites, and other documents.

A silhouette of a person in profile breathing out air in front of a Schlieren Mirror. The phenomena captures the turbulence of air surrounding the person.
Tang JW, Nicolle ADG, Pantelic J, Jiang M, Sekhr C, Cheong DKW, et al. (2011) Qualitative Real-Time Schlieren and Shadowgraph Imaging of Human Exhaled Airflows: An Aid to Aerosol Infection Control.

Glass Flux Resource List

A Book of Surrealist Games (.PDF)
Book – Assembled in 1995

Fluxus : selections from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection (.PDF)
1988 Catalog of Exhibition @ MOMA

Hans Ulrich Obrist Do it: the Compendium (BOOK)
2013 Compendium of Instructions by contemporary artists

Related exhibition website with instructions

Time and Motion Studies  (.PDF)
1953 Report from Glass Technology Conference

Sol Lewitt Drawing Series (.PDF)
Pamphlet – 2006 Exhibition at DIA Beacon, includes wall drawing tites/instructions

Event Scores of Alison Knowles (LINK)

Silence: Lectures and Writing of John Cage (.PDF)
1939 Book 

Work Ethic (BOOK)
Catalog – 1993 exhibition at Baltimore Museum of Art

Great Bear Pamphlets (LINK)
1965-67 Fluxus inspired pamphlets

Erwin Wurm One minute sculptures (LINK)
2017 Artist Website

The Glass Object (LINK)
2018 Participatory project by Celest Wilson documented on Instagram

Merce Cunningham (.PDF)
Article by Jonathan Burrows, includes scores

How To Make A Happening (.PDF)
1966 Lecture by by Allan Kaprow, there are 11 rules of the game

Notes on Choreography by Merce Cunningham (LINK)
Short Essay about translation of notations

Fluxus Scores and Instructions (LINK)
2008 EFlux Announcement; Exhibition in Denmark

Notations by John Cage and Alison Knowles (.PDF)
1965 Book, visible, but behind paywall

The Artist and Writers Cookbook (NEED SOURCE)
1961 Book with scores and instructions by (then) contemporary artists

40 Years of Rule Based Art (.PDF)
2005 Catalog/Press Release for exhibition

Performers Guide to Interludes for a Prepared Piano (LINK)
Instructions to recreate 1949 piece by John Cage

Additional Resources (Links broken or unavailable)

Performance Artist’s Workbook 
2017 Book about teaching Performance Art

Draw it with your eyes closed Website
2012 Book and Website

Grapefruit: A book of Drawings and Instructions by Yoko Ono
1965 Book

The Fluxus Performance Workbook
1960-70 Edited Compilation – published in 2002, scores from 60s and 70s

LINK TO RESOURCE (GOOGLE DOC)

Resource submitted by Kim Harty

Pricing Structure Worksheet

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

An easy-to-use spreadsheet for artists and designers producing sellable objects, created by artist and maker Heather Kraft. This worksheet provides a breakdown of cost of labor, fees, materials, markup, retail, wholesale, and asking price.

“This worksheet is a truth-teller, so it can be difficult to face. Work is expensive to make. Many artists and designers undervalue their work, according to what the market will pay for. Based on your results, you might decide the work isn’t worth the limited revenue stream. Be honest with yourself — and be kind to yourself.”

To use, visit the resource link below and make a copy or download the Google Sheets document.

LINK TO RESOURCE (GOOGLE SHEETS)

Resource submitted by Emily Leach

Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: The Impact of Virtual Communities on the Field of Flameworking

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
The Impact of Virtual Communities on the Field of Flameworking
June 20, 2022 7pm EDT
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat.
Each bullet point represents a comment by a participant.  

What virtual platforms do you use to connect with the flameworking community?
  • Tracking independent flame education from the 90s to now:
  • Flame Affinity Group:
    • Connecting with a larger group of people. Allows us all to gather in a way that might not be very practical in the physical world. It is a different group online then in physical space.
  • On WetCanvas and LampworkEtc.com:
    • Faceless nameless people on a forum, people used online names.
    • Scoured glass-bead.org and glasspipes.org for inspiration. Any bit of info was so precious.
  • On self-selecting information:
    • When learning, can be selective in what you choose to learn. That can be empowering to choose your path (as opposed to being tied to whatever info is available)
    • Information overload – too much readily available & rich info out there now
    • The responsibility of having to “vet” information online.
    • “The fascinating thing about the abundance of information is that we’ve become dependent on things like algorithms to “curate” the flood of content, which is a double edged sword due to the biases the algorithms have, as well as the lack of transparency in the algorithms.”
  • On YouTube:
    • Can find high quality videos of almost any technique – great for autodidacts
  • On Facebook:
    • Facebook Groups for a very technical question from veterans
    • For me, the Facebook groups are a lot like what the forums used to be. A good place to go for troubleshooting, to post a question and get a range of answers.
  • On virtual demonstrations and workshops:
    • Virtual demos – much easier to do from your computer than to travel with your whole setup (and having to worry about event/conference hosts having your equipment set up.)
    • When geographically spread out, we can still connect in a meaningful way. A lot of us travel, our equipment is portable, so it suits the community that we are all able to connect in virtual space.
    • I don’t know a lot of lampworkers locally, thankful that [the opportunity to give a presentation online at a conference] happened during covid, or I probably wouldn’t have tried it otherwise
    • Gave a demo for the ISGB, and was able to do that online, and most of the audience didn’t know my work yet. It was when we were super isolated. 
    • Online workshops that are interactive, and not just a presentation still feel relatively new
    • Keep up with what’s going on with the community without risking getting Covid.
    • Took a history of flameworking class online through the Corning Museum of Glass
    • Discord – used it to take a class by Scotty Mickle
      • class platforms used: a mix between Twitch and Discord, interesting that there’s not one platform to support everything yet – it’s still a mix of multiple platforms.
      • day-long class, taught from his studio, students are in their own spaces, can be comfortable talking with the instructor. Other studios just don’t work in the same way, but the format worked well for flameworking. 
  • On Instagram:
    • Use Instagram a lot, as a research tool, to connect with artists and see what they’re doing right now, more behind the scenes stuff
      • Love the instantaneousness on Instagram: less lag time between content creation and consumption as tech develops 
    • In the context of neon/plasma I started using Instagram in 2016, it was the cherry on top of getting info.
      • I learned fundamentals in person, and then added better techniques and tips. Pick up random tricks on social networks. Now I do peer to peer: ask a question, get advice from people I know.
    • With improved quality of tech in IG, can video chat to troubleshoot in real time, peer to peer, great for community. Live tech support.
    • IG to see what techniques are being developed, how something can be made
    • IG Live – in order to boost engagement to get a better place in the algorithm
      • (ex: @bostondistillery – live Q&A for free on Thursday evenings – useful resource, takes requests)
    • Importance of having an IG presence in order to be visible to the (pipe) community.
  • On LinkedIn:
    • Business to business
    • Good for finding jobs, networking with other professionals
What platforms do you use, and for what? Do you go to specific platforms for different things?
  • TikTok to veg out and for visibility, Instagram for inspiration, Facebook groups for specific info because they are easily searchable, but I’ll be a lurker on Facebook. 
  • On FB, lots of people who are very knowledgeable, also people who don’t have experience socializing with people.
  • I have a different relationship with every platform. 
  • I have the platforms linked together for posting
  • I use different platforms to interact with different audiences. IG for peers, FB to interact with knowledgeable makers and get advice from many different people
  • TikTok vs Instagram – videos on TikTok have a wider reach, but I don’t know anyone on TT. Viewers on IG are people I know, so I care more about their reactions.
How can technology address accessibility and equity?
Do online platforms make resources and communities easier to access?
Do we still have the same sort of gatekeeping that can happen in physical spaces?
  • There are grants to support BIPOC now (after [the uprisings for racial reckoning starting in 2020]). I got a shared announcement on IG. Would not have seen the open call otherwise.
  • Equality situation – you might get feedback, but what’s a comment when you’re trying to pay bills, not a lot of value on IG. 
  • LinkedIn – in a professional world – had a show and connected with other people of color, who can buy expensive art.
    • Wrote a story about a piece in the exhibition, great feedback, and hit the target audience.
    • Used the LinkedIn network, resulted in a sale, successfully targeting black professionals who are making money, making change.
  • LinkedIn – I think the algorithm is a little more equal, value does not depend on likes
  • GEEX is a special and unique space – algorithms are not affecting our content in this space
  • I am dependent on social media as a part of my practice.
    • These platforms are “free” and that’s amazing, but what is exchanged – our clicks, our data, our attention, our information.
    • It would be difficult for me to start over and not use these platforms because I‘ve invested a lot of time in the content
  • “Affordability, internships, mentorship, training as a trade”
  • Virtual mentoring
Could your career exist without social media? Could the institutions serving our community exist without social media today?
  • My business does not rely on social media, although I enjoy it, and find it an effective way to keep in touch with friends
  • Because of the age of the people I’m doing business with, I could probably do without social media and still be OK. How big is the role of social media?
  • Teaching a class, and a lot of people know me from social media, brought a new audience to my teaching. This just happened since the pandemic.
  • When the pandemic hit, I made a shift from selling to shops to selling off my own website, and social media has been a big part of that. 
  • Rather than my work being seen in a shop or gallery, my work is seen online. I try to represent myself the best that I can online and in my videos.
  • I’m entering the creator space, and making videos. Now I become the product, when videos attracts enough views they want to pay you to keep making videos of glass.
  • Went from 20K range to 30-40K followers, started getting messages from IG.
    • Set an account up as a business or as a creator and can get monetized status. It starts first with IG Live. I prefer to perform and make a nice video of a product I’d like to sell. @surfratglass
    • What has really helped with boosting that is a combination of TikTok and IG because when something goes viral on TikTok it pushes people to your IG. 
    • You become the product after a little while. 
  • I don’t have a huge IG followers, but I’ve noticed any post or story with my body in it goes to a whole different audience who then want to engage with me. 
  • Having your face in your videos increases your reach.
  • Longer interview style videos don’t get as much of a reach, but when I added food or confusion (ex: ambiguity regarding scale), it attracts a larger audience. Coffee or ice cream, confusion as far as size, what things are for. @surfratglass
  • I feel like “discovery” and “staying in touch” are two very different things.
  • “I use social media mostly for the follow up and the discovery part is something I recently started to experience.”
  • “Word of mouth is super important still”
  • “Great reminder that your target audience might not even be on social media.”
  • “Personal interaction can definitely make more waves than virtual space.”
How has social media accelerated the field of flameworking?
Has social media accelerated the field? What are the downsides?
  • Social media is foremost a tool for visibility
  • “I’m kind of uneasy at how centralized all the platforms are. There’s a lot of influence on the entities that run the platforms that affect the communities, and it’s often done without any awareness for smaller communities like the flameworking community.”
  • “I find that I use platforms out of necessity because so many people are relying on them as a primary source, but I’m anxious to be so dependent on a platform/company that views me more as a product than a customer.”
  • I use social media to raise awareness of flameworking, usually for people who have no idea what glass is or flameworking is
  • My audience is often a non-glass audience, or a beginner studio audience
  • I like the internet because it allows me to see glass through fresh eyes
  • It allows me to stay excited and engaged in the community (through the lens of my viewers)
  • Is it possible to be successful without relying on social media? Has it become an obligation? How do we define success? How can we define success without visibility on social media? Is it worth doing? What are other ways we might define success?
  • Social media has helped accelerate the pipe community. The audience is 18 or 21 years old (let’s hope), but they’re younger and are in a place in life where they don’t have as many bills and are able to buy things, and they are on their phones a lot. 
  • It feels like pipemaking has pushed the boundaries of what social media can do. Capitalized as using the internet for a gathering place and a market place in a way that has given a lot of visibility and also connection which I think makes us stronger. 
  • Success of the flameworking community (visibility) and the timeline of how technology has accelerated seem connected.
  • More ways that people can share their work in the glass community (visibility) 
  • Glassblowers from Blown Away (winners or contestants) have done very well on social media @garmezyglass
  • Flameworking pipemaker situation – at the very beginning I started flameworking with Bob Snodgrass in Eugene, Oregon, in 1994. That’s where flameworking was, for the most part. It was community-centric, in Eugene and also at festivals. Grew to Bellingham WA, and Corvallis, OR. Now there’s a strong presence in Colorado. I think it started in person and then grew.
  • Even before the internet, pipemakers knew of each other, the community was developing in real life
  • Following festivals, there was a whole economy following these touring bands. A lot of glass being sold, and a huge presence of colored glass and then people started showing the glass outside the community. It gave a big bump to the underground community even before the internet. Social media then emerged from that.
  • Boosted visibility through google search engine as a glassblower in Los Angeles (pushing for that boost to feed the algorithm.) Now I’m in a place with a cool physical community with open studios, hangs, etc. 
  • If you put your work online, it encourages friendly competition. They’re not going to be as afraid to respond to it. I have to represent my work to vastly different types of demographics. 
  • Downsides of sharing on social media:
    • Infringement on Intellectual Property:
      • Opens you up to copying — then I have to do my own thing even better 
      • A factory overseas stole the design for one of my pipes — got access to the design through social media
    • Bullying:
      • When a video goes viral, I experience bullying. A lot of mean comments.
      • Impostors, spammers and fake accounts
    • Social media can be a distraction or limit you
    • Clients not all on social media, I have to go to them to find that desired audience
    • Social media does not cover my personality even close – I’m great in person, and I gotta be in the streets.
Do you think virtual platforms have the potential to democratize flameworking?
  • “The field can only be democratized to the extent that the platforms are democratized. I think we need to think about democratizing the platforms/technology in order to further democratize the field.”
  • “Making our own platform?”
  • Getting together with this particular group – what looks to me like a cross section of the flameworking world. This programming is very satisfying. Could we build out more programming to support making work in virtual space? 
  • We don’t have control over the big social media platform, but something like GEEX seems like a safe space with wonderful people. It seems democratized for now.
  • Co-learners have a chance to access a lot of resources
  • As a flameworker, I spent 12 years alone in my studio not talking to anyone — so this is revolutionary. I might see these people once a year, if that, so a virtual community is appealing. 
  • Democratize the platforms in order to democratize the field. GEEX is a startup that we made to function this way. Not all platforms are limited by the algorithms.
  • Could we add more functionality to the programming? How can we build it out? 
    • Discord – a little more unilateral platform. Good place to Push a notification if you’ve posted something online.
    • “LinkedIn is also great because many folx are more likely to moderate themselves in a professional space.”
    • ”Also interesting to throw into this mix the use of glassmaking/glassmakers in promoting sales for other major corps (ex: Cedric Mitchell’s super high profile Nike and Fitbit ads)”
    • “Maybe social media is more useful for maintaining relationships after an in-person or 1-on-1 engagement”
  • “Hard to think of social media as democratizing as its such an influential platform for de-democratization…”
What’s the future of online communities? What is the value of social media and technology in education?
  • Facilitation collaborations to cross pollinate and gain more followers. 
  • How do you integrate technology at the torch? Does this change the nature of torch time?
  • Can you walk through the nuance of using TikTok in the education space? Featuring your students’ products you platform who you’re teaching. How do you reach out to your students to feature their products? 
    • As a teacher, I disclose (about my social media practice) at the beginning of the semester in the education space. Ask about filming in the studio, comfort level – maybe don’t show face, show hands only, video a piece being made in several stages. Ask for consent before sharing. Credit their work, link to school, stages of checking gin at various points. 
    • Student work went viral with 23 million views across the internet. (boosted the student and school’s visibility on IG)
    • This is the landscape we are living in right now. 
  • At school we have an ongoing dialog about Instagram and the value of likes. 
  • Technology in the classroom:
    • Sometimes at school (older generations) require putting the cell phone away. As new people teach, this is a tool that everyone uses, so can we consider how to use social media responsibly (so it is not a distraction)
  • Use social media in a constructive manner
  • Using social media is a professional practice – creating a presence, creating an audience, growing an audience, creating content as a way to bring people into your practice. 
  • For beginner students, social media can be a distraction (selfie at the torch) and also dangerous (safety) how to balance?
  • On marketing/entrepreneurship:
    • Big gap in my education, and was never really taught how to market my work. A lot of people buy consumer direct, and now it’s direct to the artist, it can be a great way to turn someone into a successful artist and keep making money off it. 
    • Business practices class did not cover marketing
    • Professional practice lessons are changing by the year and look different to how they looked maybe 10 years ago
    • Taught Entrepreneurship to artists over the past 20 years, and have only started integrating social media in the past 5 or 6 years
    • Entrepreneurship students use social media to find a specific audience, connect with an audience. Often niche markets (client) who is not easily accessible in physical venues. 
  • I was surprised that my students were able to connect more easily online with their target audience that in person is NYC. The audience can be literally anywhere if you are selling things online. 
  • I think there’s been a shift since the pandemic. Before 2020, in NYC, less so social media, more word of mouth. NYC art community is so small, mostly word of mouth to fill classes. I use social media if the class isn’t filling on its own. I was in the studio every day, and that’s how people found me. 
  • How much do institutions rely on social media?
    • Wider reach geographically and more advanced makers as a result of social media (and I’m at a different school) also depends on what the institution’s goals are with social media.

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Last updated: 8/1/22

Glassy Artist Statement Generator

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

To promote the launch of the GEEX Writing Center with Ana Matisse Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie in March 2022, the GEEX team developed a glass-specific, vague artist statement generator. By using the variables of first/middle/last initials and birth month to develop a random statement, this exercise opens a conversation about increasing and reinforcing writing skills for all learners and makers in glass.

This .PDF is available for use within classrooms and other learning spaces.

GEEX Glassy Artist Statement Generator. This document generates a randomized artist statement based on your first, middle, last initial, and birth month.

LINK TO RESOURCE (.PDF)

Resource submitted by Ben Orozco

The Art of Plasma by Wayne Strattman

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

Newly published in 2022, The Art of Plasma by Wayne Strattman is the first book dedicated to the medium of plasma sculpture. An invaluable resource to plasma artists of all skill levels, and an illuminating read for anyone interested in the intersection of art and science and the past, present and future development of plasma art.

“Glass, gas and electricity combine to create unique possibilities for artists. Historical techniques are now made modern in this hands-on text, revealing ways to fuse art with science to create revolutionary forms of light art. The history, theory and practice of the plasma artist are all covered to give the practitioner both context and practical information to work within this dynamic medium.”

Wayne Strattman, plasma artist, engineer, designer and author, operates Strattman Design, the leading maker of plasma displays for museums, trade shows and movie companies worldwide. Strattman holds a PhD in the Neon Arts for his research, writings and long advocacy for plasma and neon as sculptural media. Strattman previously edited the best-selling 4th edition of Neon Techniques: Handbook of Neon Sign and Cold Cathode Lighting.

Cover of "The Art of Plasma" by Wayne Strattman. The cover features an organic tree plasma form with a lower blue tendrils, and a brighter, sharper neon branches at the top.

LINK TO RESOURCE (SHOPIFY)

Resource submitted by Cary Rapaport

students use invasive species of mussels to create beautiful blue glass | designboom

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

A group of color and material design students from the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan, has taken two invasive species of mussels and transformed them into a useful resource. The design team – Emily Marquette, Mahsa Banadaki and Wei Huang – proposes using zebra and quagga mussels, which are invasive to the USA’s Great Lakes ecosystem, as a source of calcium carbonate and colorant in the creation of region specific soda lime glass. The project seeks to transform these species from an ecological threat to an over-abundant regional resource that can be harvested and used for artisanal and industrial glass and ceramic applications.

Photos of crumbled zebra mussel shards next to a pile of a blue crumbed glass powder on the right.

Project Name: Zebra Glass
Design Team: Emily Marquette, Mahsa Banadaki, Wei Huang
Instructor: Matthew Strong

LINK TO RESOURCE

Resource submitted by Ben Orozco

Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: Collaboration

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
Collaboration
March 3, 2022 7pm EST
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat. 
Each bullet point represents a comment by a participant. 
Italic headings indicate off-topic conversation threads.

What is the role of collaboration in your practice?
  • To put together large projects
  • To share skill sets
  • To make work that is beyond the scope of one artist’s ability to make
  • Collaboration through teaching
  • To make things I don’t feel comfortable making myself as a new artist
  • Access to complementary skill sets 
  • To gain access to a new market
  • In teaching, collaborate on one big piece
  • Conscious, consensual agreement with someone else who has a different background/skill set/cultural context, etc. and it’s something we agree to bring to the table intentionally
  • Collaboration does not have a predetermined result
  • Collaboration is about creating something that could never be done by one person
  • Collaboration generates new knowledge
  • Collaboration makes me feel very small, on the scale of the universe, and I like that
  • I usually collaborate with scientists, making art science work.
  • Started flameworking to work solo, as a compliment to working collaboratively in the hot shop or teaching
  • Collaboration can be intimidating and style might not mesh well
  • Looking for different perspectives on how to enter into a collaboration
  • Interested in the networking technique within the realm of flameworking and what it allows for metaphors of networking and community building to do
  • Collaborative flameworking project – invite non-flameworkers to add to a networked form using map gas torches to build structures that are not predetermined
  • To access the space glassmaking creates where people can talk about differences
  • Use flameworking for collaboration because it is more accessible than glassblowing.
  • Collaborative community building through beadmaking
  • Collaboration is a huge part of the glass pipe industry
  • What I get from collaboration is learning – flameworking can be a solitary activity, when I work with others my work and skills progress with insight from other people. 
  • Social media and market cross pollination resulting from collaboration, can help to build an audience.
  • Find someone in a different studio to collaborate with and make two pieces, one for each of you
  • Working with artists who cannot make pieces they want and hire a glassmaker to do it for them
  • Interesting to jump into someone else’s head, taking yourself out of your comfort zone.
  • Collaboration between different types of glassmaking, e.g combining furnace- and lathe-working
  • Collaborating between science and art 
  • Maybe collaboration can lead to bringing down walls between glassmaking disciplines. 
  • R&D as a collaborative communal contribution to the field
  • Collaborating for efficiency in one’s practice, and/or hiring subcontractors for fabrication.
  • Flameworking is solitary art form for me and collaboration is an opportunity to connect with people
  • Collaboration through performance
  • Relying on other bodies to be part of a vision, give someone a role and ask them to help me create a vision
  • Using collaboration to explore relationships in glassmaking
  • Collab with a chamber music group and flameworking (musical composition based on the act of flameworking and making glass musical instruments)
  • Having the opportunity to work with people I love 
  • Collaboration makes me work outside my comfort zone and try things that maybe I wouldn’t have otherwise felt were within my area of experience in life.
  • Scientific glassblowing in the aerospace industry, collaboration that has to do with engineering, bringing skills together to make the product work. (ex. bring in a welding specialist)
  • Learning opportunities to learn from people with different skills. 
  • We all bring something to the table!
  • Consider how we are going to edit or veto our designs so that we each have a stake in the project that feels fair before starting the collaboration. 
  • CAD: good place for collaborative sketching and for communicating about design
  • Collaborating through a mentoring group put together to set goals. 
  • Collaborate with others on materials or supplies. And the end results are shared. Ex: making pattern bars
  • Being in a group studio or a university can lend itself to collaborations
  • As an educator, collaboration is fruitful when teaching with another artist who is totally different and we have to figure out how to work together outside my discipline. Looking outside the glass world to collaborate. 
  • Collab can bring me out of my comfort zone
  • Collaboration to be playful and try something new to access a mindset that is helpful in manifesting the next moves in life and to access happiness. 
  • Group projects in teaching to encourage collaboration and working together to develop skills and make something bigger conceptually.
  • Rented studio time with a group of people and just had fun. 
  • Make an instrument and then everyone plays together in an orchestra. 
  • You can make career long friends through collaboration. 
  • Collaboration in the form of a response video.
  • Releasing something open source with the hopes of others iterating on the design as a form of collaboration
  • Duets on TikTok (side by side videos)
  • Technology can be part of collaboration, especially in the cyberspace sphere. 
  • Making a composition inspired by the process of flameworking
  • Sometimes I feel like it’s equal, and other times there’s a hierarchy.
  • “Giving over control over your own work is scary”
  • “Collaboration helps me feel appropriately small” 
  • “Because I have a background in STEM, there’s a perspective that I have about collaboration that is one of R&D, where knowledge is shared and built upon to further the field. A lot of my practice is research on materials and techniques that others can then use for their own practice. It’s not a kind of collaboration where it’s between people, but it’s more of a communal contribution to the field.”
  • “Collaboration as a learning opportunity, exposure to new techniques”
  • “Collaboration as exposure to a new audience”
  • “So collaboration can incorporate a lot of risk, not just with letting go of control, but also choosing to use time to “play” instead of “work” (on the clock) … but I love playing. Play time should be incorporated into the budget”
↳ Exploring the role of collaboration in fabrication, subcontracting and consulting
  • “Do we and is it useful to differentiate between collaboration as knowledge building and collaboration as subcontracting (jobbing, outsourcing, fabrication support, etc. whatever the preferred terminology)?”
  • When I work as a fabricator for other artists, I do not consider that collaboration.
  • In collaboration, I share authorship with the other entities in the group. 
  • In fabrication I am paid to execute someone else’s vision, and I am performing a job. 
  • I have to negotiate the specifics every time BEFORE I enter into a collaboration with another artist or fabrication client: division of labor, authorship, and intellectual property, in addition to payment. 
  • In fabrication, I am paid when the glassblowing is complete, regardless of whether the work sells or not. Work is passed on to the client to do what they want with it. 
  • I get paid up front as a fabricator but not (yet) as an artist. 
  • In fabrication I ask for a sketch to make sure I understand what’s in their head. 
  • When you start getting into big projects it’s important to communicate. 
  • Consulting in relation to collaboration/fabrication
  • Consulting gives me access to high paid jobs, and allows access to Silicon valley. 
  • Consulting with professionals gives me experience for my resume so I can make more money. 
  • Make different resumes for different opportunities
  • For consulting you need to know yourself, your capabilities and what you’ll charge for it, and what the other person is looking for out of the consultation. 
  • Sometimes clients don’t necessarily know the limits of the material and production limitations to ask the right questions in a consultation. 
  • It was humbling finding out about what my shortcomings were while doing commission work. 
  • Free half hour for consulting, charge a rate for additional time.
  • Two different resumes needed – one for Consulting and for Art Activities
  • Show your artwork off a little more, and maybe the engineers will respect it more once they see what you can do. 
  • I hide my fabrication work with a hidden link on my art website
  • Outside work $70 to $110/hr, includes private lessons, $40 to $64/hr in house fabrication.
  • Most preliminary consultations are complimentary — charge hourly to do the work
  • Client asked me to sign an NDA before telling me anything about the project
  • Being conscious of paying people for their time
  • “I was wondering that too. It can also highlight disparities, when someone holds more knowledge and power, and uses the “exchange of knowledge” as payment that might not suffice for someone’s years of experience or skill level etc. Without focusing too much on the negatives, I have heard of a lot of “collaborative” experiences leaving one party disappointed. My other note on this is getting to a point where you are personally financially stable enough to hire people, while growing yourself”
  • “I ask for CAD renderings”
  • In the hiring vs collaborating distinction, there is also consulting which can be something a little different from both.
↳ Examples of collaboration
How do you negotiate a collaboration? Is it freeform? Do you have a contract? Is it like a duet? Are you making a body of work?
  • I haven’t made an object in collaboration, for me it’s mostly performance, or music, it’s often freeform and I have the ownership. 
  • Connected on IG after following each other’s work and then collaborated IRL
  • I send my collaborator parts and they get worked into larger pieces, we split it 50/50. 
  • Negotiate the price split up front, be sure to advocate for yourself regarding what your time and skills are worth. 
  • In pipes, it is generally understood that it’s a 50/50 split. 
  • Find out how much your prep is worth and make sure you get that – you can price out your prep individually and maybe your collaborator will need to up their price to accommodate that, which is a good thing for you both. 
  • Is skill level a factor in collaboration?
  • Commission split according to who had more IG followers, value of social media audience is considered. Value of marketing is factored in. 
  • Using creative commons and open source licenses for negotiating collaboration. 
  • I use creative commons licensing to make open source tools designs for the resource exchange. 
  • “I think about how you brand yourself, and also if people know your situation.”
  • “As a personal example, I hired a filmmaker to film and edit a video for me. It was a collaborative process, and I give her credit when I share it/show the film. But I consider that I have overall creative control and ownership of the work. (As just one example)”
  • “Collabricator (TM)”
  • “A friend of mine traveled to, and collaborated with a new friend, to then be told they would only receive 30/70 when the piece sold due to their lack of skill. Just wondering how we can avoid these sorts of situations “
  • “Do the $ negotiation up front and over email so you have a paper trail.”
  • “Contracts protect both parties, if it’s a big project don’t be afraid to make a contract. It can be simple. “
  • “Beginners can be more subject to this kind of unfair treatment when things are not as upfront“
  • “Maybe not specific to just glass, but there are mechanisms like “Creative Commons” or “Open Source” licenses where one can release something that is implicitly intended for collaboration. This might be something tangential to what we’re talking about, but I feel like it could be an interesting model for modes of negotiating collaboration… especially when you’re dealing with a form of knowledge.”
  • “It should be 50/50 because a lot of it has to do with the “name”
How do collaborations start? If there’s someone you’re interested in collaborating with, how do you approach them?
  • Mostly I just hit up my friends because approaching strangers on the internet is scary. 
  • I try to get to know the person I want to collaborate with to get into the other person’s head in order to come up with something weird. 
  • I like to seek out artists doing something completely different from me and find common ground. 
  • What platforms do you use for collaboration? Have you ever met/not met someone you’ve collaborated with?
  • “Anyone feel free to contact me to collaborate… also looking for mentorship.”
  • “Someone to collaborate on making graphite molds!”
  • “I want to see more flameworkers collaborating with institutions.”

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LINK TO RESOURCE (GOOGLE DOC)

Last updated: 3/28/22

how is this glass?: Post Glass Artists/Glass Guerrillas

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

A blog founded by GEEX Talks 2021-22 speaker Anjali Srinivasan, and Yuka Otani, exploring and establishing a new conceptual space in glass, between 2008–2011.

“yuka + anjali is a curatorial team interested in the latent connections between glass and alternate / new media. Since 2008, we have been working towards exhibition and publication of guerilla interventions in glass practice, and the consequent re-definitions.”

Screenshot of the pastel-orange, how is this glass? website, the article features an image of Anjali Srinivasan holding a mirrored glass orb in front of her face.

The following article from how is this glass? establishes the notion of a post-glass artist, how they make sense of their practice, and relate to the world.

LINK TO RESOURCE

Resource submitted by Ben Orozco

Exhale with Vigor: Artist Talk with Karen Donnellan and Suzanne Peck

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

On Wednesday, March 2, 2022, the Smithsonian American Art Museum hosted a virtual conversation with Karen Donnellan and Suzanne Peck, featured artists in “New Glass Now,” on view at SAAM’s Renwick Gallery from October 22, 2021, to March 6, 2022. This program looked at how the artists use humor and a slightly subversive approach to rewrite the language of glass art. Their poster series “Exhale with Vigor” rejects the outdated slang used in hot glass studios and replaces chauvinistic terms with technical, fun, and feminist phrases. By examining how language, gender, and sexuality play a role in the contemporary glass field, Donnellan and Peck are working to create a more inclusive and representative hot shop.

Mary Savig, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at SAAM, joined the artists for this engaging conversation on the language of contemporary glass making.

Opening title for the Artist Talk titled Exhale With Vigor: Artist Talk with Karen Donnellan and Suzanne Peck. There are two portraits of each speaker standing in a hot shop in with their respective tools (pipes, ladles, etc.)

LINK TO RESOURCE

Resource submitted by Helen Lee

Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: The Changing Landscape of Flameworking

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
The Changing Landscape of Flameworking
Dec 16, 2021 7pm EST
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat. 
Each bullet point represents a comment by a participant. 
Italic headings indicate off-topic conversation threads.

What are some of the areas of specialty that make up the landscape of contemporary flameworking? How do you identify in the field of flameworking? What’s your identity when you’re in the field, and when you’re looking out?
  • “Within the glass community, I identify as a flameworker with specialties in beads and sculpture/fabrication. In the greater arts community, I identify as an artist and represent glassworking in general.”
  • Overlapping identities of performance art, interactive artwork, wearables/jewelry, teacher, ambassador/advocate for flameworking.
  • I self-identify as a flameworker with other flameworkers, but hesitate in outward facing situations to avoid being pigeonholed.
  • I use the term “glassmaker” instead of “pipemaker.” Hesitate to identify as a pipe maker. In the general art world, “flameworker” or “pipemaker” language is not fully understood by the general public.
  • Never identified as a flameworker or beadmaker – “I work in glass” or glassworker. Did not feel comfortable identifying as a beadmaker because of hierarchy when first started. “Pipemaker” can be considered taboo.
  • Try not to identify myself, or even say “glass”. Categories can get in the way of things.
  • Self-identity as Glass Specialist in tech industry, title/specialty matters for negotiating salary. Downplay your specialty as an artist.
  • I identify as an Artist and Designer first, fluctuates depending on project, neon is a micro-niche that is a process driven aspect of flameworking
  • Self-labeled “Glass artist” on instagram, but identify as a flameworker. Can be an unfair stigma against flameworkers from other people in the glass community, who want to avoid “tiny glassblowing” implications. 
  • In the jewelry community, I self-identify as a beadmaker, because it links to the traditions of beadmaking, and honors those who came before.
  • I make a point to identify as a pipemaker. Struggle in the pipeworld to be perceived as female and be identified as a pipemaker at all.
  • There is a lot of exciting potential for flameworking in education, re: realities of energy use and climate change, flameworking lends itself beautifully to that. 
  • A bit of a disconnect in academia – still a bit of a stigma re: pipemaking, although that is breaking down.
  • Regarding not fitting in – in the scientific community, [I feel] too artistic and in the art community [I feel] too technical. But that does not matter to me.
  • There are deep specialties for some of us, lack of being categorized for some of us, for some, overlapping categories.
  • “I’m not a flameworker, I’m an artist who takes advantage of flameworking.” Helps the viewer keep an open mind for what the work needs to be. 
  • “I think I will be happy to be called as a flameworker and an educator who is exploring the boundary of the field. I often fuse 3D rendering & flameworking, screen printing & flameworking, etc. However I am in huge love with the technique, I would say I am a flameworker rather than a sculptor.”
  • “Representation matters!”
  • “As someone who lives in the middle of nowhere, who is completely removed from the glass culture, all of this info of this faction-ing is so interesting.”
↳ Identification through Materials/Technique
  • Specialization in fabrication is helpful for client confidence.
  • Soft glass is ancient, but borosilicate and quartz are new glasses. Listing material as “Borosilicate” instead of glass in artwork can be indicative of a contemporary material and process. Being specific about materials might be a good thing.
  • Listing borosilicate as a material helps give information about the process.
  • In the 70s it was all glassblowing. The term lampworking didn’t come in until the 70s/80s.
  • When you read old materials, you’ll see glassblowing — not lampworking or flameworking. 
  • Is it time to update some of the terminology we use?
  • Sometimes being really specific regarding identity markers can form cliques or ingroups and that may be something to avoid. Reluctant to pick specifics as identity markers because it can hinder inclusion.
  • Getting comfortable with flameworking has opened up opportunities in the hotshop. Flameworking is a tool, and does not need to be defined as one specific thing.
  • What are some of the earlier terms for this mode of working? Could that language be used today?
↳ The Taboo of Pipes
  • When did pipes become taboo? All of a sudden it was shunned. Pipes have always been part of the American lifestyle. I shouldn’t be a separate thing.
  • Maybe from DARE and the war on drugs in the 80s? Before that?
  • American Pipe history – in the 70s or maybe late 60s and when people first started selling pipes in record stores and head shops, the trade shows where this stuff was sold was closely connected to the porn industry. Wholesale events would be together, so pipes became associated with porn, so maybe that’s how “Pipes are bad” attitudes started.
  • American Glass Expo (pipe trade show) used to always be scheduled after the porn convention in Las Vegas. (in contemporary times)
  • In 1970, Sally’s teacher Lloyd was selling fumed pipes at craft shows. Police said he couldn’t sell hookahs but he continued selling pipes.
How can we define ourselves collectively in the field? How do we define contemporary flameworking today? How is it different from the past? What is and what is not contemporary lampworking?
  • One aspect of contemporary lampworking is that there is a lot of collaboration happening, maybe now more than ever. Portability, enabling traveling with equipment
  • Contemporary Flameworking could be an inclusive term used to describe anyone working with glass in this way, any of the subgroups, and including artists/designers who do not identify as flameworkers but use flameworking as a technique in their work.
  • Anything made with a torch should be considered flameworking, even in the hotshop.
  • Contemporary flameworking is more concept driven.
  • Flameworking vs. lampworking? Use them interchangeably? Flamer, torchworker.
  • I use the term Lampworking when talking about history because that was the term used.
  • Titles – just get rid of them all.
  • West coast people say flameworking, east coast people say lampworking.
  • Scale of heat- is that a defining criteria for “flameworking” vs. melting glass stringers with heat from a candle, for example?
  • “I think the contemporary flameworking is more concept-driven.”
  • “I think if you use a torch to manipulate glass in any part of creating a work, that work is tied to contemporary flameworking.”
  • “Flameworking” is a really new term. I tend to use “lampworking” for historical torchwork”
  • “I like lampworking bc it’s older, but got tired of “oh, so you make lamps?”
  • “I usually call it flameworking or torch work and use lampworking as a reference towards the historical roots or the process”
  • “Pipe is for transport/moving material or media… it’s historical”
↳ Color in Flameworking
  • Flameworked glass is a lot more colorful these days because of expansion in the borosilicate color palette. (In the 80s, with a limited palette available, artists mixed their own colors.)
  • “We had blue and uranium green, and everything else we mixed ourselves.” You can fume with red iron oxide. It’s amazing the color that is out there now. Learning curve with the new colors. Sue Ellen Fowler and Paul Trautman were pioneers in making borosilicate color.
  • Because of its immediacy, there is a playfulness to flameworking that is not experienced in other glassworking practices. (Re: mixing colors, trying different glasses, understanding and observing properties of materials in real time.)
  • Past volumes of New Glass Review & “academic glass” – often clear. (Not much color)
  • Data points of what glasswork is most likely to get into the New Glass Review (Zac Weinberg’s project) Flameworking, and art made with found glass was among the least likely to get in.
  • Depending on jurors — in a recent year of New Glass Review, there was lots of flameworking and pipes represented. Micah Evans was the juror.
Where do you think the field of flameworking is headed? Do you anticipate advancement in the field? (What constitutes “advancement”?)
  • Advancement could be increased visibility for flameworking. Showing the different aspects and variety of ways of working to break down stereotypes. 
  • More representation of flameworking at conferences & in the world and in the art world. 
  • More exploration of borosilicate as a plastic material by sculptors inside and outside the glass world. With borosilicate it’s possible to revise, rework, edit and repair. 
  • Exploring borosilicate in a mixed media context. 
  • Advancement could be defined as an expansion of technical and/or expressive applications for borosilicate glass. 
  • Scientific glassblowing is responsible for so many advancements, not just in flameworking but in science and technology and affects us all. (fiber optics, screens, etc.) Opens up more possibilities for art. 
  • A foundation in flameworking can be a great starting point for problem solving, where other methods for glassworking might not be applicable, and especially for thinking through micro-scaled work, or laser welding glass.
  • Advancement could be considered as inclusive expansion of flameworking into the developing world. Potential for flameworking to be more accessible to people who would not otherwise have access to glassworking. Hotshop is so expensive, although there is a point of entry through scientific glassworking that could be expanded. 
  • More interdisciplinary work incorporating flameworking with other components. 
  • More flameworking represented in Biennials and international shows.
  • Flameworking being represented as art without needing to call it out as flameworking. 
  • More representation for flameworking so that eventually it might become so familiar that we don’t need labels. 
  • The state of the popularity of pipemaking and flameworking is a common force driving students to institutions, however, then once they get to institutions they are often shut down. Thinking of flameworking as technical can be a way around this, and can be applicable for the interest of the next generation and a way to talk about pipes. Technique and design can be common ground to bring everyone together in institutions. Would be great if pipemaking were more open in institutions (not necessarily being able to make pipe objects, but to have a dialog about technique and design.) Use pipes to engage the creativity of students and challenge design conventions.
  • Pipes are an entry point into glass. Take away the stigma of pipemaking. 
  • TikTok as a point of entry – link to classes, resource exchange for more info. 
  • Often we have to follow the market, but it would be great if the jewelry market were as lucrative as the pipe market. 
  • Increased dialogue between flameworkers. (Something we are doing with Flame Affinity Group)
  • “I would love to see fluidity in flameworking with multimedia, non exclusionary, open, limitless in expression.”
  • “I think a large area that isn’t explored enough is interdisciplinary work. Incorporating flameworked glass components, or flameworking techniques into work, and even combining it with other disciplines and media has a lot of potential that hasn’t really been mapped out yet.”
  • “I see a lot of quartz being used.”
What could future action look like?
  • Create or use a platform to cross-pollinate and collaborate on new ways of working.
Suggested Topics for Future Meetings
  • Deep dive discussion on increasing diversity in all areas.
  • Collaboration – what sorts of platforms do you use? 
  • Accessibility and diversity
  • Pipemaking – import some of the stories, voices, history into the community 
  • How does teaching happen in the community? Competition pipemaking? Learn about some of the innovative structures that pipemakers have come up with as solutions to not having access to institutions. 
  • “I’d be interested to hear from flameworkers who do fabrication work! Maybe this could be tied into Paul’s idea of collaboration, and provide useful pointers/career development for people who haven’t done it before.”
  • “I would love to hear from other artists who have not had access to traditional or non traditional education who have had to learn in isolation, and how to mingle with their peers who exist in different artistic spaces.”
  • “I count that (pipe field) among the diversity that I was talking about. Diversity in terms of experience, background and perspective fit into that.”

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Last updated: 2/8/22

Flame Affinity Group Meeting Notes: Flameworking in Institutions

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive
A group of flameworkers working together on a shared table for a flameworker performance by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

GEEX Flame Affinity Group
Flameworking in Institutions
Oct 28, 2021 7pm EDT
Facilitated by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith

Notes compiled by Amy Lemaire and Madeline Rile Smith.
Entries in quotes are copied directly from the chat. 

How did you learn to flamework?
  • Self-taught 
  • Books and magazines
  • Open access workshops locally
  • Hot head torch kit
  • Fabricating for other artists and designers
  • Classes through a high school
  • Apprentice/ work for local glassblower
  • Making beads
  • Learning from being around other flameworkers 
  • Learning from teaching & working collaboratively
  • Student in a university glass program 
  • Resources from the Rakow Library
  • Bartering – production work for studio access/classes
  • Work at studio for access/classes
  • Watching You tube videos
  • The Bead Project
  • Doing production beadworking/flameworking
  • Learned from a pipemaker
  • Flame bench in the garage
  • Saw flameworking demo at RIT in high school
  • Salem Community College – associates degree flameworking
  • Learning on the job – scientific glassblowing
  • Flameworking in the summer during breaks from school
  • Always had instruction
  • Apprentice with scientific glassworker, developed lifelong mentorship relationships
  • Started teaching right away
  • Started in the hotshop
  • Contemporary Lampworking book by Bandu Dunham
  • Glass book by John Burton
  • Made pipes on the side (of furnace work)
  • Bead classes at a non-profit art center
  • Supplementary workshops
  • Production work – “get paid to practice”
  • “Apprenticeship with Bob Snodgrass”
  • “At a local craft center”
Where could flameworking reside within or adjacent to institutional programming?
  • Within a university glass department 
  • Supplementary workshops at open access facilities
  • Apprenticeships and internships with flameworkers
  • Outreach programs
  • Within a jewelry design program
  • In the context of entrepreneurship
  • Within the context of painting/ mixed media 
  • Setting up a torch at home to practice
  • Scientific glassblowing
  • Related to engineering – rapid prototyping and fabrication
  • Professional mentorship 
  • Scientific shop at a university 
  • STEM programming
  • Scientific – lean on the fact that scientific glass working is a viable path (STEM)
  • engineering (R & D, silicon valley, scientific glassblowing)
  • In a Sculpture and Design program
What are some of the challenges encountered regarding teaching/learning flameworking in an institution?
  • No formal flameworking classes
  • Limited or no access to equipment 
  • Facilities – “a torch in the corner” scenario in colleges
  • Flameworking discouraged in institutions (within context of furnace glass)
  • “Impossible” to get into glass classes at university
  • Hard to vet info found on the internet (you tube) for quality
  • Have to come up with funding for classes (grants, scholarships)
  • Available resources have toxic or “bro-ey” overtones 
  • Experiencing queerphobia in community space
  • Distinction between furnace glassworking/ torchworking can lead to hierarchy/division
  • Only had access to soda-lime glass, no borosilicate
  • Hierarchy where one mode of working is pitted against the other
  • Having to spend a lot of time convincing people in institutions of the value and potential of flameworking 
  • Perceived stigma of pipemaking
  • Flameworking is not regarded as a medium that is relevant in contemporary art or contemporary glass (stigma in the glass community and in the art community)
  • “Within larger art contexts, most people don’t know enough about glass to care which processes are used”
  • There isn’t much exposure to high school students (so folx can get a jumpstart on learning handskills)
  • Lack of opportunities available for flameworking – scholarships, grants, open calls for exhibit)
  • Lack of professional development in the arts (re: making money off our artwork/skills)
  • Being an artist is considered taboo, not economically viable
  • “Making money off your skills in art is still considered dirty and it is stunting the growth of our development as artists and the growth of our community.”
  • Opportunities available to Students coming out of glass programs and also their Peers in adjacent programs (ceramics, jewelry) are often low-wage, hard labor jobs often in glorified factory settings, even with an MFA 
  • Attitudes that making marketable work is selling out. 
  • Little to no skills are taught for how to make a functional or sellable object. Students focused on making conceptual work, so do not develop marketable skills and are often not even viable as an assistants in some situations. 
  • Institutions are not set up to support long term access (‘overstaying one’s welcome”)
  • Toxic environments in some of the factories/businesses/institutions exploit and underpay workers.
  • Lack of women in the field
  • Lack of diversity in the field 
  • A lot of these glass programs are in places dense with cultural diversity (cities, and rural locations as well), but this is not reflected in the programs. 
  • Institutions tend to be old school, old boys club and still want things run a certain way (Legacy). But new generation is not feeling those attitudes. 
  • Institutions don’t acknowledge these changes in the (art) world which is gravitating away from physical tangible things. Cryptocurrencies, NFT;s and digital art and changing the conversion, and the glass collector market.
  • GAS is largely white (though they are working on changing this)
  • ASGS used to have the “men’s tour” – glassblowing and the “women’s tour”- shopping
  • Not a lot of institutional resources to do outreach.
  • In university programs – mostly women in classes. In flameworking community college program – only a few women in the classes. 
  • Instructors at universities may not feel comfortable teaching flameworking 
  • Students have to weed through info on online platforms like instagram and you tube to find usable material. (ex: #lampworking on instagram)
  • Some of the opportunities available to students (jobs, etc. ) are known toxic environments.
  • Didymium glass is very expensive (for safety glasses) so not everyone can have safety glasses for large demos. 
  • What can we do to help people have access who don’t know about institutions or think that existing institutions aren’t for them?
  • Should we focus on fixing the institutions as they are or start making something new?
  • Letters of recommendation, professional images of work, and submission and application processes are direct barriers to accessing institutions who do not have the resources.
  • Gatekeeping in the education system – our job as educators is to teach people skills they can use, not to decide who gets to learn.
Quotes from the Chat: Challenges teaching/learning flameworking in an institution
  • “A big challenge that I see in accessing flameworking in institutions is having issues in accessing the institutions.”
  • “Not necessarily a challenge, but a lot of students want to learn pipemaking. I see why it’s taboo, but learning pipemaking only expands knowledge on vessel making in general”
  • “Lack of access to resources is a massive issue in UK. There is little opportunity to learn even as a vocational course in this country. The postgraduate programme i’m on has no full time tutors who use torches”
  • “the prejudice that hot glass workers have against flameworking carries over in institutions, in my experience I was the only person in my glass program with any significant flame working experience. I once had a professor tell me to stoop flameworking and focus on hot glass.”
  • “Money is a very important topic! What to do after school is a conversation that I did not hear enough about while I was in school. “
  • Business practices for flameworkers! 
  • “Entrepreneurship on how to create a glass business needs to be a class and how to professionally market yourself for high paying jobs in glass as well”
  • “general business classes are not always very helpful to students looking to start their own glass/art business”
  • “The problem is can school find real successful entrepreneurs, you need to know marketing, product design and etc. The class would almost have to bring in a different teacher every other week or something”
  • “Some university programs strongly discourage students making production while in school “
  • “Try not to limit yourself” is a great saying, but there are people out there who have real limits. Like being able to sustain a practice is a real limit that people have to consider, which is where I think a lot of these production/business questions are getting at.”
  • “And it is a shame that the sort of diversity outreach work we need falls on the shoulders of BIPOC most times”
  • “I think a lot of it comes down to a lack of exposure into these communities. So many people just simply don’t know about flameworking”
  • ““Letters of recommendation” are probably one of the biggest barriers to entry”
  • “The most difficult part of flameworking to improvise (that I’ve run into) is the safety part. I haven’t found a good alternative to the didi glasses to protect from sodium flare.”
How do we address the challenges?
  • Making new online spaces from the ground up which are inclusive and supportive (ex: facebook groups)
  • “I end up teaching my fellow undergrads how to work with the torch”
  • Insist on bringing torches and flameworking bench into the hotshop
  • Lead by example by flameworking in the hotshop and cross-pollinating
  • Consider all modes of glass working (flameworking, furnacework, etc. ) to be equal and valid. 
  • Getting more recognition and visibility within institutions
  • Being an advocate for the value and potential of flameworking in institutions 
  • Exposure to younger people could be beneficial to the community as a whole – high school and younger, also so the time they enter college program, they have some skills to build on
  • Educate the community on how to make a living with flameworking (jobs in the sciences – scientific glassblowing, R & D, tech, etc, and also entrepreneurship (pipemaking, etc. )
  • Create more opportunities for scholarships, open calls for exhibitions, and classes offered for glass and flameworking
  • Bring back apprenticeships
  • Bring in post docs, MFA all together in one class to encourage cross-pollination between the arts and sciences.
  • Create classes with more diversity to encourage cross-pollination (sciences, arts, engineering, etc. ) 
  • More university and institutional programming for flameworking (open access) 
  • Try to collaborate with Scientific glassblowers in institutions.
  • Coming together to discuss inequities and challenges instead of dealing with it individually
  • Pooling our resources
  • Find a community college near you or be willing to travel to a community college for access/instruction
  • Educate students about viable and lucrative career paths in engineering, R&D, scientific glassblowing
  • Reach out to companies (silicon valley, engineering, etc. ) to create opportunities to gain experience/training  for students while still in school through collaborative programming (internships, jobs, apprenticeship, professional mentorship)
  • Schools – improve marketing for professional opportunities in glass (engineering, etc.)
  • Schools could collaborate with tech companies, production companies to create opportunities for students
  • Prep students for professional interviews so they can get professional glass jobs in tech/engineering
  • Lead by example – Hire somebody and pay them well (so they can go out and do the same thing)
  • Open up more discussion about professional development in schools
  • Normalize being an artist who supports themselves with their art.
  • Normalize production work and fabrication as a viable way to sustain an income in the arts
  • Teach students more marketable skills – project management, handskills, teamwork, professional communication, budgeting)
  • Teach students to become self employed to support themselves (and  normalize supplementing self-employment  with other work)
  • Teach people to set up an independent torch setup (low cost/overhead)
  • Use the internet to connect with a market – the internet is vast! Harness the power of social media to connect with an audience.
  • Create diversity outreach programs to connect POC in local communities. – you can make a career in glass. 
  • Bring more FREE opportunities for women and BIPOC folx
  • Get a group of artists engineers, makers, together and start showing some other models for what glassworking looks like – maybe online platforms like tic tok
  • Create new models and collaborations that contextualize glass in the context of cryptocurrencies, digital art, NFT’s – 
  • address the changes that are really effecting the next generation and acknowledge a movement away from tangible/physical objects.
  • Create new spaces for the new generation – both digital and physical institutions. 
  • Develop a “Kahn Academy of Glassworking”, instructional videos, maybe use a Patreon page to fund it. 
  • Create programming with business programming geared towards creatives. (ex: program in Boston where students 12-14 yr. had business class in morning, alternated between flame and furnace work in pm and had a gallery to sell work in as part of the program.)
  • Continue building the community when we start to pull people in (through outreach programs, etc. )
  • Make resources available to teachers to make it easier for people to teach flameworking. 
  • Showing examples of artists work to show many different ways to flamework – maybe in an open source online gallery scenario that could be searchable.
  • What is the most basic (inexpensive and simple) systems that can be set up for flameworking and what can be done with that? (Ex. stringers and an alcohol candle, hothead torch, etc. – creativity comes from limitations)
  • Provide longevity within institutions to support glassmakers. (who do not have access to resources)
  • Vet opportunities for students that are safe and not toxic work environments. 
  • Get a diddyclip or didymium filter for your camera and a television and present the demos for the public on a screen so that everyone can safely watch. 
  • Compiling high quality educational videos that are vetted for teaching.
  • Put videos out of instructional demos (even in the context of a business, or product making) – process videos will help your business.
  • Do away with letters of recommendation – direct barrier for scholarships, access to institutions for POC
  • Rethink application and submission processes for accessing institutions to remove the barriers for POC – maybe set up a table in the community and register people at in person events. POC might not have extra time/leisure time so meet people where they feel comfortable – make it easy and remove the barriers for entry. 
  • Build a new system that’s not based off the western (white, privileged) way of doing things from the ground up.
  • “Could GEEX be a viable platform to experiment with making new systems?”
  • “Have your Art Dept. come to your glassblowing area to try things out. “
  • “I think schools that teach glass processes have a responsibility to introduce flameworking as it is the most accesible way to continue glassworking after students graduate and keep their hands on glass”
  • “The glass world needs to lean more into science and engineering”
  • “A new age glass center might be a good idea to create, these older school center are stuck in their ways.”
  • “I think a place like Salem and other organizations could create a youtube channel together”
  • “I like the idea of creating something new. I also feel like the existing institutions have a lot of baggage to overcome and wonder if it would actually be easier to start something new rather than fix what’s there.”
  • “Maybe every few weeks someone create some piece of art and science and Salem post to there youtube”
  • “more women in the field”
  • “I was hoping to create a direct alternative to Torch Talk on Facebook with the Rainbow Flameworkers Coalition. I am afraid of retaliation from them if I name it as a direct foil to that group”
  • “More resources for BIPOC flameworkers, or environments for diverse flameworkers
  • more cross-pollination across disciplines”
  • “How can we create, offer, and expand on free classes for interested students?”
  • “online and in person classes, workshop, pop up store event and exhibition “
  • “There’s a part of me that thinks one of the basic steps of getting the field more diverse is to get more people started in that field. And I think a part of that is to figure out how to get more people started with the bare minimum about of startup costs.”
  • “People of color need to see that it’s possible to make money off of glass”
  • “What about creating a mobile studio and going to underserved areas and doing demos?
  • The other question is, how can we provide free lessons in glass, while still paying the teacher for their work and experience”
  • “visiting predominantly BIPOC highschools in the area?”
  • “You could take a few students and host a workshop at several different BIPOC highschools
  • This is something that would benefit Tyler School to do too! we’re around so many schools k-12 yet seldom visit the shop”
  • “The bare minimum to get started that I found is getting a MAPP gas torch, some stainless steel welding rods, some clay for bead release, and a crock pot full of vermiculite for an annealer. (And some glass, of course)”
  • “And when privileged white folks are the ones reaching out it doesn’t always give the right impression”
  • “mutual aid”
What are some of the resources currently available for learning/teaching flameworking?
  • YouTube videos (playlists, vetted)
  • Workshops at local open access glass facilities
  • Books and magazines
  • Facebook groups 
  • Resource Exchange (GEEX) – open source resource lists
  • Open access programming (Pilchuck, Penland, Pittsburgh Glass Center, etc. )
  • Community College (for cheap access) (Salem Community College)
  • TikTok
  • GEEX Affinity Group
  • Outreach programs like The Bead Project, Glass Roots
  • Community college is FREE in NJ for anyone with Gross Adjusted Income of less than 65K/yr 
  • Supply lists for setting up a basic teaching studio and a solo flameworking setup.
  • A collection of videos showing what flameworking looks like in different parts of  the world.
  • Playlist of Lectures (historical, contextual)
  • https://libguides.cmog.org/flameworking
  • Playlist of youtube videos circulation in pipemaking community (420 videos)
  • https://youtube.com/c/revereglass
  • https://artist.callforentry.org/festivals_unique_info.php?ID=9239
  • “I took business of art classes at NYFA and at my local arts council. Check out resources in your area. They covered everything from marketing, websites, taxes, law issues, etc. (look beyond glass)”
  • “torch talk FB group although the culture is moderately toxic” 
  • “GAS was my first venture out into the world of glass beyond Southern California”
  • “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Residency – Corning …https://www.cmog.org 
  • “michigan glass project seems to be doing something right”
  • “PGC offers many opportunities to the glass & non glass community. “
  • “I put my demos on blackboard for the University of Ma. YouTube for the University of Vermont”
  • “I always recommend a hothead torch and beadmaking kit when people are really interested. Could even hand these out”
  • “Love the online gallery idea – great for new students, but also to help the public understand the potential of flameworking”
  • https://www.didyclips.com/product/didyclip “Or You can make one with a lens from some broken glasses”, “also Aura lenses makes a similar product, also one that screws over a DSLR camera”
What Resources would be helpful for learning/teaching flameworking?
  • Make more inclusive and supportive community spaces
  • High quality vetted videos for teaching (especially beginner)
  • Develop a “Kahn Academy of Glassworking”, instructional videos, maybe use a Patreon page to fund it. 
  • Showing examples of artists work to show many different ways to flamework – maybe in an open source online gallery scenario that could be searchable.
  • “Access to maintained torches and equipment better designed for torchworking (Kilns, tools, ect) with my current school specifically.”
  • “residencies & idea furnace opportunities for non glass artists. “
  • A collection of resources, videos about flameworking. Flameworking demos.
  • More videos for absolute beginners – ex. Turning the torch on for the first time
  • A list of technical exercises for beginners to practice on the torch 
  • “More resources for BIPOC flameworkers, or environments for diverse flameworkers”
  • “How can we create, offer, and expand on free classes for interested students?”

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Last updated: 8/25/22

Intro to Glass Art Demonstration Zines!

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

“These are a collection of zines based on the demonstrations and visiting artists presentations during Art 3003 AU2021 at The Ohio State University, taught by Brianna Gluszak. Each student was assigned a demo or presentation to take notes during, then re-form their notes into a zine to be shared with the class. This assignment not only produced an interesting collection of written (drawn) glass resources, it also neutralized the need within the classroom for a note taker.”

GIF rotating between editions of Intro to Glass Art Demonstration Zines, made by the students of OSU.

First Day in Hot Shop – Celeste Carpenter
Bit Structure Demo – Victoria Taylor
Press Molds with Richard Harned – Helene Roussi
Stained Glass with Richard Harned- Sydney Mitchell
Collaborative demo between Andrew Newbold and Brianna Gluszak – Emma Morgan
Intro to Cold Shop – Henry Mayeux
Collaborative demo between Jon Capps and Molly Burke – Rebecca Irmen
Intro to Imagery on Glass – Mia Kordowski
Imagery on Glass (powder printing) – Madison Gladman
Visiting Artist Kim Harty – Gianni Giarrano
Visiting Artist Ben Wright – Kaitlyn Smith

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Resource submitted by Brianna Gluszak

KSU Glass Resource Site

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

Kent State University Glass’ Resource Site, featuring helpful intro guides for glassblowing, mold-making, kiln-casting, and more.

“The most useful individual pages are: https://ksuglass.wordpress.com/technical-materials/ and https://ksuglass.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/glass-rescources/. The first is a (non-comprehensive) list of useful technical documents for basic glassmaking. The second is a list of links to material/info suppliers that students might find useful.”

Screenshot of Kent State University Glass Program's Glass Resource Site, featuring an image of a large blown vessel being worked on

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Resource submitted by Davin Ebanks

Portable Polariscope

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

“This is a design for a portable polariscope. A polariscope is a useful tool for viewing stress in transparent materials such as glass or plastic. Using either linear or circular polarization, stress in glass is visible through the polariscope viewfinder.  It is a useful teaching tool for understanding the properties of glass or plastics, and a necessity in the glassblowing studio to aid in the fabrication, quality control and troubleshooting of glass work.”

Image of an illuminated portable polariscope. The 3D printed object features a portable flashlight that reflects onto two screens in parallel with each other.

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Resource submitted by Amy Lemaire

The Whiteness of Glass, 2020

by geexadminin Glass Resource Exchange Archive

The Whiteness of Glass is a creative essay written by Related Tactics and commissioned by Susie Silbert, Curator of Postwar and Contemporary Glass at the Corning Museum of Glass for New Glass Review. Related Tactics (Michele Carlson, Weston Teruya, and Nate Watson) is a multidisciplinary collective of artists of color creating work together at the intersection of race and culture. Formed in 2015, Related Tactics projects utilize a variety of modes—sculpture, writing, print, social engagement, and curatorial tactics—to explore the connections between art; movements for equity and justice; and the public.

You can find their November 2021 GEEX Talk here.

Snippet of "Whiteness of Glass, 2020", written by Related Tactics for the Corning Museum of Glass New Glass Review.

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Resource submitted by Related Tactics