There was a new studio that opened up near my home and It was opened during the peak of the pandemic so I couldn't visit. Since a lot of things have cooled off my wife mentioned to me about why not visit the glass studio and register for a simple crafting class for kids in the weekend? Great idea!!
Since I was young I was so mesmerized by the look of glass... especially when I had marbles for the first time. It was like looking into a galaxy in each glass marble. I can look at it for hours through a light source. At night time or day.
I never really saw with my own eyes how glass was made and this was the day. As much as my son was excited I was ultra curious and excited as well. Off we go to the Glass Studio!! This event was taken on 10/15 Saturday afternoon. :)
The studio location they used an old Japanese occupation period building and renovated it to be very clean and modern. It fits the vibe of a modern glass studio... lots of white color and big clear windows.
I realized they even got an iF design award for the design of the studio interior at the same time this studio was government funded so they really utilized it to the max!!! Nevertheless its good design which I appreciated.
As we enter the studio we can see someone with gloves and goggles heating up molten glass from the furnace. It was just like the ones I saw in television.
The craftsman gets a ball of molten glass and starts blowing the thing and ironing the details. Bend here and there, roll it sideways, place it back in the furnace, bring it out and do some more blowing and bending.
And seeing this in real life glass kind of looked like a red glowing ball that I wanted to touch.
It didnt look as crazy hot as I thought it would be. I was expecting the glass to radiate heat like what we experience in a hot raging camp fire. That heat at times get so intense I even have to close my eyes. That was what was in my mind but nope!!! Wasn't like that at all....
As the craftsman is doing his glass thing one of the people there kindly escorted us introducing the studio and knew we were here for the kids class.
The class was a very basic introductory class of glass making... we were going to make glass stiring sticks. In my mind I thought we would totally be blowing glass balls through a blow pipe but they mentioned that was not entry level. I am gonna do that one day.... its in my bucket list!!!
We can create stirring sticks and the next level to that would be the leave ornaments you see in the bottom picture.
Leaf stirring sticks above, and leaf ornaments below.
Since I really like tools the equipment to make glass is something that really interests me. Creating things with tools is somewhat meditating when I am in the zone of creation... its something I wish to find for a long term hobby. Not sure what it will be yet.
The translucent colors that glass can give off is absolutely magical in my eyes. It almost looks like a perfect flow of liquid but its not. The long colored glass rods you see below is when you want to add a touch of color in your clear molten glass you can dab it a bit just like how you would with water color paints.
Since this has a lot to do with heat its a field I am not very familiar with but maybe someday I can get into.
I saw some glass sticks and an ultra fancy fire torch that had the most beautiful white color in a flame I never saw in nature.
A picture cannot really get how white and clean looking this flame is cause its bright as hell and we need to wear tinted glasses made for looking into this type of light.
I never knew how a flame could look so pretty... Its something I recommend everyone to take a look at one day cause the camera automatically makes the picture dark when I try to point and focus on it.
We were introduced to some glass rods and she asked to pick any of them and here we began to wear some goggles and with the glass rod we held it in front of the white flame. In a matter of seconds the tip of the glass rod started to get bright glowing red and slowly but surely it looked like it was melting!
This light our instructor mentioned it uses natural gas and mixed with pure oxygen to create a white flame. She said the white flame is the hottest flame color we need to heat up the glass to make it soft and malleable. The flames we see everyday are orange and blue flames but none of them are near the heat of the white flame we are seeing in front of us. That was pretty cool~
It really does look like your kind of playing with lava... the red glow makes it look soooo high tech for some reason. There is no fire... just a red glow. Now that's pretty cool indeed.
At the time a flashback has just occurred to me to a time when I was a kid and wanted to make melting glass and took a glass stiring rod at home and started heating it up with the gas stove I had at home..... I would stick the glass and wait for like 15 mins and nothing was happening. Later ot just got boring so I moved on to a different thing. Well... now I know I needed dat white hot flame!!! Clueless me.
As the tip was melting and becoming round ball like shape we took it out of the flame used a wrench to flatten that tip into a shape that looked like a leaf. There were also pigments used for coloring and boy that really was fun to see how it embedded with the glads and created a flow like state frozen in time!!!! Gorgeous!!!!
After the craft has been done we needed to cool it down and this took about 30 mins. Instead of just waiting we were told to go upstairs for some drinks and snacks while we wait. Ahhhh the full course treatment done well. :)
I really like how the glass can give off both color and texture which reacts to the light very differently.
There in the middle was a display of the studio's work and the theme of this was lighting. The use of light and translucent glass was showcased for us to eat our dessert and enjoy some of their crafts. I really do like the large white space and interior design here. This was unexpected.
mmmm.... good and yummy cakes while we wait. With some drinks. :)
Everyone here is also waiting for their crafts to cool down... and just enjoying the moment.
We can see some other displays of the glass studio's work and each floor the interior design is really done well. It doesn't look like that from the outside at all... and I guess its really the inside that counts here at this studio.
A glass sculpture that was hung from the top floor all the way down to the first. They really showed every possibility the art form of glass can do.
All of the glass work seen here was made in this studio and they had them for sale as well which was displayed in the shop.
A view of the actual glass studio seen from the floor above. That is a pretty cool view to watch things in action.
All in all it was a good day cause everyone in my family got to learn something. I do enjoy experiencing these types of studio's and in Taiwan there is really a lot of them to show that is very family oriented. Its where kids and adults alike can craft simple things for the day and learn a thing or two.
Thanks for checking out my post today and I hope you all have a great day!
Stay tuned for more experiences in Taiwan.
Here is a link to the location and website of the glass studio to find out more.
https://goo.gl/maps/t4Qvs1uP4wZTrkpKA
Set the Tone!!!!
