Corning Museum of Glass | How I made my own Glass

Ah! Glass. What else can I say? I often wondered, "How were you created?" I couldn't resist getting to know you better because you were so visually appealing, whether transparent, structured, carved, or colored. Today, I appreciate you even more because I made my Glass at the Corning Museum, and you had to go through melting, forming, blasting, and a variety of other processes, yet you came out as if nothing had happened.

At the Corning Museum, I did check the Glass Making schedule at the welcome center and enrolled  in one of those available classes.

My previous post on Corning Museum of Glass:

Inside Corning Museum of Glass

Glassforming

We made our own Glass Flower using the Glassforming process, which allows us to choose the colors and then shape and tweeze the hot furnace glass. When I was making my own Glass Flower, I didn't know if I could make one. With the hot furnace Glass in one hand and tweezer in another, I had envisioned myself making something weirdly random, let alone a flower. Yet my palpitation turned into excitement when you came out as I had imagined. The good thing is, they even let you take your Glass back. We must wait for the Glass to cool completely before picking it up the next day.   

SandBlasting

This time we made our etched Glass. Sandblasting is the term for this procedure. I'd call Glass peeling away and revealing its true colors in layman's terms. With Silicon Carbide on our Glass and stickers, a full-blown 45 pounds per square inch of pressure passed through the machine. 

 I had often wondered if my random sticker placement would result in an unsightly, unusable Glass, but it surprised me when it came out of the machine looking quite lovely. The trick is to put stickers on the areas that we don't want to be sparkly, i.e., matt. Cubic zirconium is the most well-known version, according to our demonstrator Cat. 

Silicon Carbide, a material used in race cars and spaceships, was used, and we were talking about removing a whole layer of Glass while the colors on the sticker faded. Yes, it's fragile, but it came out as a lovely decorative piece.

I would strongly advise you to use your time slot for the Glass Studio, or you can wait for your turn at the open class outside the CMOG building. It's a must-do!