The Hot Spot

Yesterday, I began to tell you about The Hot Spot. I found it by mistake surfing the internet. Since I am learning about stain and fused glass, and since I saw the Chihuly gardens in Seattle, I wanted to see if the Chihuly collections was close to me. I found that they were opening a display of this master's glass work at the Morean Center in St. Petersburg. I was thrilled. And as I researched further I saw that there was a girl's night out on select Fridays. I contacted them, and I was in luck. One of the select Fridays was when my friends were here for our slumber party. We had to go. Just had to. I figured it would be something that no one would really do on their own, and it would be a momento from our weekend to last a lifetime.

We decided to go to the St. Petersburg art district where the Hot Shop was located and walk around. The Hot Shop was inside a fenced area adjacent to the shop featuring all the glass works from varied artists.

We were in for a treat.

We found out that in order to blow glass we would have to be on our knees, so we decided to make a paperweight. We were to select two colors for our paper weight.

I selected two shades of blue. Others selected red, vanilla, and gold.

Below, Danielle (our instructor) walked each of us through the process by first gathering the glass and putting it into the furnace. She handled the glass at first, and then we turned and turned the rod as the hot glass was gathering the colors that we selected. The picture below shows Danielle manipulating the glass for it to be even. Further below, we are putting the color on the hot glass.



Once this was finished, we individually sat on a chair and turned the hot piece of glass while she shaped it with a huge pair of scissors.

To the right, Danielle is sitting and working the hot piece of glass forming its shape into a paper weight.

Once we finished, Danielle put the paper weight into a kiln and we could pick the paper weight up another day.

It looked like someone had finished making a beautiful bowl. Our paperweights were in the same kiln.

Of course, there were many more steps, but if you ever get the chance to work with hot glass, do. It is scary and so much fun. But now that I have done it once, it's not so scary any longer.

Here we are -- I am the one with the wild hair. Can't do a thing with it since moving to Florida. It's frizzy and unruly due to the humidity.





And here are our finished paperweights. Each one is different and all, oh, so cool.

Until next week...have a great weekend....