I've been interested in making food items in glass for quite some time. My goal is to ultimately make sushi and sushi accessories such as plates, soy sauce bowls, and chopsticks in a fairly large scale. One of the people I respect in glass, and certainly has a bunch fun making his large scale food, is John Miller. John makes large scale works of things like hamburgers, french fries, beer bottles and other great items. The hamburger alone is probably 20" across and must weigh 50 pounds.
I made some small sliders - more on that in a future post, but John is the king of diner food and I wanted to create something of my own. I settled on donuts. Over the past few months I've been making various jelly donuts. These include chocolate glazed and powdered strawberry stuffed, as well as chocolate covered cream stuffed eclairs (we call them long johns in the midwest).
While I was at Corning recently, I took advantage of the great photography skills of the resident photographer, Ann Cady, to get these great photos which show off the idea. Ann's business is called ARC Photographic Images and her website/contact info is here.
Now all I need is a nice cup of coffee...
I just returned from The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass where I participated in the workshop on glass casting led by Richard Whiteley. What a great experience!!!! I've now been privileged to attend 10 workshops at The Studio and I think this one ranks up there as #1. There are too many things to go into - suffice it to say that if you ever get a chance to work with Richard - take the plunge. It will be rewarding.
First off, workshops at Corning have a "teaching assistant" whose main job is to herd the cats (workshop participants), fire the kilns, and generally keep people from doing silly stupid things. We had much more than a TA though. Heike Brachlow was our TA for the session. She should have been considered as co-instructor. She did so much more than the typical BA. She is a world class glass caster in her own right. Check out her work here. One of her movement pieces was featured on the cover of the Bullseye catalog #7.
Check out Richard's work here. Richard treated the workshop more as a very abbreviated class he would teach at the Australian National University. This is very different from what I've experienced in past workshops. There was an equal amount of thinking/planning as there was actual hands-on work. At first, I questioned this approach but I think it was much more effective.
Richard and Heike were sticklers for safety and health practices - requiring dust masks, eye and hearing protection. Here is a picture showing how we usually saw him during the day.
And here is a picture of me working on a mold.
I'll post some additional topics about the actual pieces I made during the workshop in the near future, along with photos.
My bags are packed, the car is loaded, the cooler is full of Diet Dr. Pepper, and I'm just about to depart for the beautiful town of Corning, New York. Seven and a half hour drive, give or take 30 minutes. I'm taking the Richard Whiteley workshop "Addition and Subtraction" over the next two weeks.
Above is the picture from the Corning Museum Of Glass website for the course.
I can't wait...
I a little more than 96 hours, I depart for another visit to The Studio at the Corning Museum of Glass, in beautiful Corning, New York. I attending a two week workshop with the great glass caster from "Down Under" - Richard Whitely. You can see his work here.
I'm really looking forward to it - however I've been putting off preparing to go. Last time I took a casting class, I showed up with several molds ready to cast, and made a bunch more - all in a week's time.
I guess I am getting lazy in my old age. I know what I want to do, and have even drawn sketches - that will be the subject of an upcoming post. But I only have one clay original ready. I have a few originals in wood that I want. And I have one wax of "The Rock" which I thought was the subject of a post from a long time ago. But my mind is failing me - I don't see it. So I'll post about that too in the near future.
The Rock is a nice rock I found in the backyard one day that was the perfect size for a suiseki display I was thinking about. This is the art of rock display much like bonsai, although you don't have to prune and water the rock (unless you want to, of course). I made a nice little display base that I cast. I found a rock that fit perfectly on the base. I made the two piece mold, mother mold, and even two waxes of the rock, but never got it cast. I have the glass, the waxes, the original mold, and now a reason to do it.
I can't find the picture of the rock and the wax right now - I did find the process photos of making the mold. Here you can see the rock and the mother mold I'm cleaning up. I poured a rubber mold as the next step, just to learn the process.
The other things I want to do are all over the map, and I'll not have the chance to do them all - but if I can get a few out of my head and into glass, I'll be very happy.
