I made this on the first day of class this session, sort of as a warm up. I generally like to use the ‘hodgepodge’ frit, the frit that’s left over from other frits, or that’s been mixed in. I can’t say it’s my best paperweight. I like them to be rounder, not so pointed. Also, I would rather have more glass between the color and the outside.

You’d think paperweights were as useful as preschool ash trays, but I actually use my paperweights when photographing my pieces.  I have a  big roll of paper I use as a backdrop, and the paperweights keep it from slipping off the table.

Ironically, I made this one after I made the blue goblet. I say ironic, because it’s kind of mutant in comparison. I was shooting more towards a pilsner glass shape rather than a martini glass.  Somewhere along the way, it got out of shape and I never got it back on shape again.

I made this cup thinking it would be a good front-runner in the goal to create a birthday present for my friend. He likes to drink Manhattans, which are traditionally drunk out of a martini glass. I asked David Vogt  how to make one, and he demonstrated. this doesn’t quite have the martini shape, but I don’t think that’s terrible because the martini glass is really a terribly impractical shape. it tips too easily and is hard to drink out of without spilling, even for the sober.

This bowl is called “suckbowl”  not because of its quality but because of how it’s made. David demonstrated it, and I knew I had to try it out.  You start by applying color around a bubble, then blow the bubble into as big a sphere as you can manage.  Getting it nice and hot, you pull it out of the gloryhole and suck, to collapse the sphere in on itself. This takes timing, because then you have to jack it off the pipe and use tongs to place it onto a still-soft cookie foot.

As you can see, mine got a little off center when I sucked the air out of it. I felt sad, but I wasn’t the only one who had problems.  The cool thing about making a bowl like this is that the lines criscross for a nice effect, and the cookie foot provides a smooth base with no need of grinding. The bad thing is that the rim is thicker than i’d like.

I made this blue because one of my goals in this class was to create a birthday present for a good friend of mine, and he said he likes the color blue.  To make this, I rolled the bubble in frit, and after it was melted it in, I blew it into an optics mold. An optics mold is like a narrow pointy version of a bundt pan, but without the hole in the middle. It makes ridges on the edge of the glass, which is where the frit gets concentrated.

Using the marver table, I twisted the bubble to make the lines spiral around, then smoothed it out and finished the cup.  I like the way the transparency makes the lines seem to cross one another.

Sometimes I feel like I ought to try something harder than tumblers, but I like tumblers. They’re functional, and the simple shape lets me experiment with coloring variations, like the optics mold or dragging lines or the mold that makes bubbles.