Penland Summer 2014
Jen Elek: Furnace to Finish

Attending Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina over the summer of 2014 was the starting point of my research of combining glass and clay. The two and a half week course, Furnace to Finish, taught by glassblower, Jen Elek, was based on exploring the foundations of furnace working. After practicing the fundamental techniques of glassblowing for the first week of the course, I experimented with blowing glass into ceramic bisqued, (fired), forms.

I came to Penland prepared with bisqued ceramic vessels, each a slightly different shape and form. For the first experiment, I brushed kiln wash inside one of the ceramic pots to prevent the glass from sticking to and cracking the ceramic. Kiln wash is a sacrificial layer of material between your pot and your kiln shelves. It's primary purpose is to prevent glaze from sticking to your shelves. I wanted to see if there was a difference when blowing glass into a ceramic piece with or without kiln wash.

For my first attempt at blowing glass into the ceramic form, I placed both pots into an annealer at 950 degrees Fahrenheit so that the heat of the glass wouldn't shock the ceramic. An annealer is a kiln that is designed to anneal and cool down glass. Once the ceramic pieces reached temperature in the annealer, I started gathering glass from the furnace. Measuring the diameter of the ceramic pots before gathering the glass, I was able to have a reference of how much glass to gather. Once I had a sufficient amount of glass on my blow pipe, I began to blow into the pipe to form a bubble. Using tools such as the wood blocks to shape the glass, I was able to form the glass into an oval shape. Once my glass bubble was even, in terms of thickness of the glass, I flashed the glass into the glory hole; a furnace used to reheat the glass piece in between steps of working with it. I then quickly ran over to the annealer, stood above my ceramic pots with my blowpipe hovering over, and blew into the pot. As the glass stuck to the ceramics, I pulled out the blowpipe, and ran over to the glory hole to reinforce more heat to both the glass and ceramic, in an attempt to fuse them together. After a few seconds in the glory hole, I took the piece over to the bench and used the jacks, a tool shaped similarly to tweezers, used to enforce a line in the glass as an easy breaking off point from the glass to the blowpipe. After breaking the piece off the blowpipe, it was placed in the annealer for a slow cool down. The first attempt was not successful as the glass immediately broke the ceramic. I believe the ceramic piece was not hot enough and the extreme heat of the glass shocked the clay to the point of fracture. For the next two pots, I will anneal the ceramics to a higher temperature of 1285 degrees F. In doing this, the ceramic pots will be at a closer temperature of the glass, which is worked between 1,600 and 1,900 degrees F and be less likely to shock from the difference in temperature.