Vlad's Glass Hammer

Last summer I attended a workshop at The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass.  The workshop was all about cold construction of glass.  This includes gluing optical glass blanks with colored glue.  The instructor was Vladimir Klein.  Check out his website here.  Vladimir is very well known in Europe but not so much in the U.S. 

A typical "Klein boat"

Vladimir at work

The workshop "Teaching Assistant" was Martin Rosol, a well known glass artist in his own right.  Martin doesn't have a website but here is one good example of his work. 

Vladimir has a very interesting technique - and one I was probably most worried about.  The technique is "chipping" the glass with a hammer and chisel.  Now my thoughts are glass and hammers don't even belong in the same room together, much less as a way to make beautiful art glass. 

I haven't done too much chipping yet, as it makes a mess and glass chips fly everywhere.  However I did think a homage to Vladimir was in order.  If he can use a metal hammer on glass, why not make a glass hammer on steel.  Here is the resultant piece.