Patty Gray class at the Vinery

I recently attended a 3 day glass intensive class taught by Patty Gray. My friend Dakota and I road-tripped up to Madison, Wisconsin, to take the class at the Vinery glass shop. It was a bit humbling to be in such company! Many of the students were experienced glass workers and Patty has a scary amount of glass knowledge and talent. Dakota was a huge help to me and the other students were great about sharing ideas and helpful tips. We worked for 3 days straight from 9:00 to 5:30 or even 6:00. I took bunches of pictures, as many as I could, anyway, during breaks. Dakota's red bowl: The wonderfully talented and patient assistant, Richard, demonstrates combing: A peeking admission... I am a peeker. I don't peek into folks' medicine cabinets but I do peek into hot kilns. It is FABulously thrilling to see glass in its melted stage. This kiln was being vented. I wouldn't want to open the kiln and ruin someone's piece. I do look into my kiln when it is down to around 1400 degrees. I need to get some special glasses since this is a compulsion I can't resist. Making stringers First blob of glass out of the kiln: Bummer- it's blurry: Hot and dripping: Here Patty is coiling the glass around a copper pipe: Here is my tile of glass for a high-fire experiment. The glass is supposed to move around in designs but I am guessing the kiln was overloaded or not hot enough or mine was in a bad spot b/c the glass didn't move despite tons of voids in the design. Our bowls after fusing: Mine is the bottom right. Hard to tell from the pic but it turned out quite lovely. I left it there for them to slump. Didn't want to take a chance of messing it up myself! Pattern bars and a few bas reliefs: My pattern bar set is the one that looks like a roll of lifesavers. After cutting is when I discovered some of the strips look like a roll of lifesavers. Wasn't intentional but it turned out super cool. Misc. mosaics: Mine is the lizard. Jacob is getting an anole from school so I made this tile for him. Since I have no blasted clue what an enola looks like, I made a blue-collared lizard that Dakota told me about. Here is a fun group shot (minus two, I believe- Carol and Charlene): Denny (Vinery owner) Ann Janet Dakota Jean Pam Richard Patty (Patty Gray, renowned glass artist and teacher)Nancy Kathryn Dawn Lisa (me) And finally! We spotted the great pumpkin on the way out of Madison. How cool is that?!?!?! (taken via high-speed drive-by)