Demonstration of the lampworking process After designing a piece, a lampworker must plan how to construct it. Once ready to begin, the lampworker slowly introduces glass rod or tubing into the flame to prevent cracking from thermal shock. The glass is heated until molten, wound around a specially coated steel mandrel, forming the base bead. The coating is an anti- fluxing bead release agent that will allow the bead to be easily removed from the mandrel, either a clay based substance or Boron nitride.
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Bob Snodgrass, Oregon DFO 2019 (Photo by Connor McHugh/Pyroscopic) Bob Snodgrass blowing glass in his VW Bus at DFO in Oregon 2019. (Photo by Connor McHugh/PYROSCOPIC) Bob Snodgrass is an American lampworker known for his contributions to the art of glass pipe-making and glass art. He began working on his techniques while following the Grateful Dead on tour during the 1970s and '80s. In 1981, glassblowing became Snodgrass's main trade.
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This killed it but, more importantly, time and a lack of hard parts eventually rendered the specimen little more than a colorless floating blob of jelly, making it neither pretty nor an effective teaching tool. Prof. Reichenbach wanted something more, specifically 3D colored models of marine invertebrates that were both lifelike and able to stand the test of time.Harvard University Herbaria and Botany Libraries And,in 1863, he "saw an exhibition of highly detailed, realistic glass flowers created by a Bohemian Lampworker, Leopold Blaschka, at an exhibition hosted by Prince Camille de Rohan;""Leopold + Rudolf Blaschka {...} The Glass Aquarium {...}". Design Museum (designmuseum.org).
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In 1854 he married Caroline Riegel \- producing glass eyes, costume ornaments, lab equipment, and other such fancy goods and specialty items that only a master lampworker could accomplish. However, like anyone, he did have free time, and his hobby was to make glass models of plants – as opposed to invertebrates. This would, many years later, become a base for the fabled Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants (otherwise known as the Glass Flowers), but, for the moment, such artistry was naught but an amusing and profitless pastime done between his various commissions. Yet, unsurprisingly, given their stunning quality, this amusing hobby – itself born out of seeking consolation in nature upon his first wife's death – attracted attention.
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And, per remarkably coincidence, in 1863 "saw an exhibition of highly detailed, realistic glass flowers created by a Bohemian lampworker named Leopold Blaschka." Blaschka model of sea anemones Enchanted by the botanical models and positive that Leopold held the key to ending his own showcasing issue, in 1863 Reichenbach convinced and commissioned Leopold to produce twelve model sea anemones.Museum of Natural History Berlin, Historical collection of pictures and writings – Katalog über Blaschka's Modelle, L. Blaschka, Dresden, 1885 These marine models, hailed as "an artistic marvel in the field of science and a scientific marvel in the field of art," were a great improvement on previous methods of presenting such creatures: drawings, pressing, photographs and papier-mâché or wax models.Goodyear, Anne Collins, and Weitekamp, Margaret A. Analyzing Art and Aesthetics.
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Leopold felt a sense of quiet, inspirational, wonder at these luminescent ocean dwellers, a sense which he recorded and translated by Henri Reiling: "It is a beautiful night in May. Hopeful, we look out over the darkness of the sea, which is as smooth as a mirror; there emerges all around in various places a flashlike bundle of light beams, as if it is surrounded by thousands of sparks, that form true bundles of fire and of other bright lighting spots, and the seemingly mirrored stars. There emerges close before us a small spot in a sharp greenish light, which becomes ever larger and larger and finally becomes a bright shining sunlike figure." This sense of wonder would fuel his later work but, in the meantime and upon his return to Dresden, Leopold focused on his family business which was the production the glass eyes, costume ornaments, lab equipment, and other such fancy goods and specialty items that only a master Lampworker could accomplish;Harvard University Herbaria and Botany Libraries plus the task of furthering the training of his son and apprentice (and eventual successor), Rudolf Blaschka.
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