GLASS WORKS
ECU workshop gives novices an opportunity at glassblowing
The glassblowing process is like a dance, and the key is learning the choreography, says East Carolina University instructor Mike Tracy.
Five people from eastern North Carolina recently learned how to make glass candy dishes at ECU’s GlasStation in Farmville. The three-hour workshop is one of several offered this spring through ECU’s College of Fine Arts and Communication and the Office of Continuing & Professional Education.
While glass workshops are not unusual, they are typically offered by nonprofit studios instead of college programs, Tracy said. “This studio was created with community outreach in mind as a secondary goal right behind the course offerings it adds in the School of Art and Design,” he said.
Kim Valentine Carmichael of Elm City and ECU instructor Mike Tracy use a hand pump to inflate hot glass while rotating the blow pipe.
Jynx Pigart of Greenville, a 2020 ECU alumna, is a research assistant in ECU’s biology department. She took a ceramics class as a student and really liked it, so she decided to sign up for the workshop.
“When I signed up for the class, I thought it was in the art building,” Pigart said. “I had never been to Farmville and maybe never would have without this experience.
“I just want to learn to how to tango with glass,” she said. “It seems like a rare opportunity to get to work with glass because not everyone has these facilities.”
The workshop was a Christmas gift for sisters Kim Valentine Carmichael of Elm City and Linda Valentine of Wilson. Carmichael, already an accomplished artist, owns and operates Colorful Spirits studio. While she has made glass art, it was the first time she tried glassblowing. “I love everything about it,” Kim said.
Linda considers herself a hobbyist. “I work mainly with paper so this really is a first for me,” she said.
Kim volunteered to go first as others in the class watched. Guided and assisted by Tracy, a bubble was blown in the glass with a hand air pump, and shaped into a sphere that eventually was formed into a bowl for the candy dish. She rolled the molten glass with the colors she picked — black, white and gray — and used special glassmaking tools to create the design and heat her work in a 2,100-degree furnace.
“Every piece of handblown glass starts off as a small bubble,” said Tracy, adding the biggest learning curve is rotating the pipe when blowing the air.
As he demonstrated at the beginning of the class, someone asked, “Can you do mine for me? This is so much.”
Tracy encouraged everyone feeling nervous to relax. “In my regular college classes, I try to emphasize to them ‘don’t try to learn this as a step-by-step process’ … but try to think of it as learning how the material works, and then you don’t have to think about it step by step. It becomes an intuitive thing,” Tracy said. “It takes a lot of practice, a lot of failures, but for people who get the glass bug, it’s fun every step of the way. It’s also the most frustrating thing every now and then.”
To prevent drops or cracks, the glass must stay heated while it’s being shaped, so participants had to work efficiently and return their piece to the furnace several times throughout the process. Pieces also must be cooled slowly (at least 24 hours in the GlasStation’s annealing oven). Class members returned to Farmville a couple of days later to pick up their dishes.
The workshops are meant to give anyone the chance to try their hand at glassblowing.
“For some people, that experience is great and all they need,” Tracy said. “I’ve had a few workshop participants that get the ‘glass bug’ and go on to enroll in the class I teach for Pitt Community College.” Tracy has been teaching classes for both institutions since the GlasStation — housed in a former gas station on West Wilson Street in Farmville — opened five years ago.
Click here to learn more about art-related continuing education classes offered at ECU.
A candy dish begins to take shape in an ECU glassblowing workshop.