Glass - Jeremy Weine's Photography Portfolio

Blowtorches are used to "spot heat" the glass to make it easier to alter in specific locations.

On the first day at the RISD pre-college program, I met and befriended Andrew and Walter who are glassblowing majors. The two of them had been blowing glass together for the past four summers at an arts-based sleep-away camp. This year, however, the decided to blow glass at RISD instead.

I had never met people who blew glass or seen glass blown, but on the second Sunday of the program I tagged along with the two friends and my camera to watch and photograph them in the hot shop. (Glass is blown in the “hotshop” but often refined, finished, and assembled in the “coldshop.”)

I watched in wonder as Andrew and Walter pulled molten orbs out of the furnace, working together to stretch, bend, and shape glass bubbles to complete their assignments.I quickly caught on to the rhythm of the process, and after an hour or so, I could predict what their next action would be.

That Sunday was the beginning of my journey documenting them as they made art with a medium that they could only use once a year. I have spent the last six weeks continuing. Every time I shot them, I better understood their dance.

This body of work is about Andrew and Walter’s friendship, my growing familiarity with the two of them, and a unique art form which was entirely unfamiliar to me until just a few weeks ago.

2019

Glassblowing in the hotshop is almost always a two-person process. For all "blown" glass pieces, air is blown through a "blowpipe" into a "gather" of hot glass, forming a bubble. Walter and Andrew often blow for each other, while the "gaffer" shapes the glass.

Walter leans over the furnace of molten glass to take a "gather" (a piece of molten glass that has been spooled onto the end of a blowpipe). Meanwhile, Andrew "flashes," or briefly heats his piece in the "glory hole" to keep the glass from cooling too quickly. If glass rapidly cools to a temperature below about 950 degrees Fahrenheit, it can spontaneously shatter.

Walter rolls hot glass in small pieces of colored glass to create a decorative "bit" for Andrew's cup.

Andrew and Walter would often roll pieces of hot glass on a metal table called the "marver" to shape and cool it.

Andrew spot heats a cup.

Andrew uses the "jacks" to open a cup while Walter prepares to "paddle" its lip.

Andrew creates two dimples with the back of the "tweezers" in a glass cup to be filled with small bits of purple glass.

Andrew uses "the paper" to chill and shape the walls of a glass bubble as Walter blows into the blowpipe. Walter told me glass blowers love using the paper because it's as close as you can come to touching the glass while it's hot.

Andrew uses the diamond-coated grit wheel to flatten the bottom of a piece.

Walter examines a piece of his final project. This was the first time I saw a component of his "shower head" sculpture.

Walter "hot pops" the top of a piece made from a plaster mold of a soup can. Hot popping is a cold-working technique in which a small torch is used to cut off unwanted parts of a glass form.

Andrew uses the diamond saw to cut the glass stem he plans to use to mount his final project, a series of glass cups depicting water pouring out of them.

Walter holds up one of his droplets, lamenting that they won't be perfectly dry or clean.

Walter drills holes in the "shower head" (a large disk of wood with a sheet of mirrored acrylic on the bottom side) to hang the water droplets with fishing line. Andrew prepares to connect one of his final pieces to its stem.

Walter and Andrew cold work their final pieces. At left, Walter uses a Dremel to bore holes into one of his glass water droplets for it to be hung. At right, Andrew connects a glass stem to one of the pieces in his final project.

Andrew mounts his final pieces to a sheet of plywood for exhibition.

Walter prepares to hang his glass "water drops" from the shower head (a large disk of wood with a sheet of mirrored acrylic on the bottom side).

Andrew and Walter's final pieces displayed in the pre-college end-of-program gallery.