The Craft Emergency Relief Fund (CERF+) provides craft artists with support and resources for disaster and emergency relief, education programs, and readiness grants to strengthen preparedness.
Their Studio Protector resources outline the factors to consider for your studio space, storing artwork and materials, keeping records, preparing for emergencies, and more.
This is an Instructable to walk you through how to make a sensor-controlled relay power strip using an IR sensor.
“I am an instructor who teaches Plasma Design in the Scientific Glass Technologies program at Salem Community College. One of the challenges has been finding a reliable and affordable transformer to run small plasma displays. Unfortunately, there are not many products on the market, so I decided to make a device which can be used with any transformer to initiate and control the length of time a bulb is turned on. It works great for student displays, especially with Tech22’s L7020 transformer.
I use this device in my own plasma work, and find it handy to use in exhibitions. The device is designed to minimize the risk of injury or the glass being damaged, uses less power, and extends the life of the transformer. By waving their hand in front of the sensor, viewers can initiate the illumination of a plasma bulb without touching the device itself, retaining the interactive quality that is unique to plasma displays. The timer can be set to customize the output for many different situation, including animating the plasma display.
Although this device was designed for use with plasma displays, the output can be any device that plugs into a standard plug on the power strip. It could be used for many other purposes, including art installations.”
Limits the amount of time transformer is on, keeping plasma display from overheating and extending the life of the transformer
Optimizes use of plasma in exhibition or installation, so that plasma display is only activated by the presence of the viewer and remains off the rest of the time, making for minimal maintenance by the gallery staff, and adding an extra layer of safety, and conserving energy.
Optimizes off-the-shelf transformers (such as Tech22’s L7020) to light high-pressure plasma designs for short durations of time without overheating.
Provides ability to animate multiple plasma displays by changing the code on the microcontroller.
Introduces students to electronics, using sensors and microcontrollers, and coding, by building this device.
This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
These lists are meant to encourage institutions to set up flameworking equipment and support co-learners in autodidactic explorations of flameworking. The intention is to provide suggestions for basic flameworking equipment and provide resources for purchasing supplies in different regions of the country, and not to endorse any particular supplier. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather a starting point for building a flameworking studio or workstation.
“Since some studios require face coverings while blowing glass, this easy augmentation makes it easy and comfortable to use a blow hose/swivel with a face mask.”