I took my first and only glassblowing class in March 2020…it was the last “normal” experience I had before covid lockdowns. In a post-covid future I am so excited to pursue future glassblowing classes such as making pumpkins, flowers, coral bowls, and other exciting designs. I took this bowl-making glassblowing course at BAGI in San Jose, CA and I highly recommend the instructors and experience! They were patient, meticulous, and allowed us to have some artistic liberty even for a beginner’s class. My final product of this class was the Chihuly-esque curvy bowl featured here.
Class began with selecting our desired colors of glass for our final product. I chose blue and green for a sea-inspired look.
We began the actual glassblowing by shaping clear glass into a bubble to ultimately become our bowl.
This bubble was shaped by rolling the rod it was attached to to make sure it was evenly rounded and using tongs to pinch off the shape.
The bubble was then dipped in the blue and green glass and put back in the kiln!
A glass foot (a dollop of disc-shaped glass) was added to be the base of the bowl.
The bowl was transferred from one rod to another (to be attached by its base) and the bowl shape was formed using using the tongs to wide the central opening.
An optional BAGI stamp was added to the final product.
And ta-da! The final product!
For this class I was wearing a Make America Gay Again shirt made by the fabulous Randy Rainbow. I went on to take two additional glass crafting classes at BAGI, another hot glass class to make a glass flower and a cold glass class to make a coral bowl. These additional glass crafting exploits are catalogued below.
Millennial's Delight 