University Daily Kansan, October 14; 1982
Page 7
These blown glass objects are a few examples of Bob Hodges creations.
Discipline allows expression
Glass blowing melds heat, art
In a limestone barn on West Campus, natural gas furnaces are heated to 2,100 degrees and broken Pepsi bottles are filled with hot water. The glass takes on a golden glow.
Here, the ancient art of glass blowing is practiced by modern students.
Glass blowing allows expression through discipline, Robert Hodges, Grangevale, Calif., graduate student, said recently.
"Glass blowing, for me, is a fluid type of dance that allows me the freedom to improvise within a relatively structured type of procedure. The improvisation, then, becomes my own personal type of approach to the material," he said.
GLASS BLOWING demands practice
achieve conformity in what is made,
be used.
“To do two things the same requires a great deal of repetition and practice. You really have to know ahead of time you're trying to accomplish,” he said.
"From experience, I know how fast
the material is moving at what temperature. That way, I can sort of handle it better.
As he spoke, Hodges heated one end of his blow pipe, a 54-inch hollow steel tube, until it glowed red. Sliding the end into one of the furnaces, he gathered a small amount of glass and withdrew it. As the glass cooled, he blew a small amount of air into the tube and formed a bubble of glass at the blowpipe's end.
"Glass cools down incredibly when you take it out of the furnace. If I don't keep rotating the glass, gravity will lift it up." Both tube and glass from side to side.
AFTER GATHERING more glass on the bubble, Hodges said there were three things a glass blower had to learn to do. The temperature, gravity and centrifugal force.
After getting the desired shape, the glass blower uses a type of tongs, called jacks, to thin the neck of the piece. The piece is then thinned, the piece can be cracked out or removed from bottom of the piece can then be attached to a pauzy, a rod shorter than
the pipe, to reheat and finish the rough edge of glass.
ONCE THE GLASS is blown and shaped the way the artist wants it, it is removed from the purty and placed in an annealing oven, he said. An annealing oven slowly cools the glass so it will not crack.
In the oven the glass cools from 970 degrees to room temperature in about 12 hours.
Hodges learned to blow glass in 1973 at a small college in eastern Oregon and now spends more than 12 hours a week practicing the art, he said.
"I WAS LOOKING for a faster gratification from my work than I was getting from ceramics. I hated the wait," he said. "When I started, the guy that ran the program had not bled glass for about five years, so we were all learning together. We learned how to make a lot of mistakes together."
Hodges said he had decided to make glass blowing his profession.
"Besides selling my work in galleries, I'm also developing a product line that I'm planning to sell through interior decorating places," he said.
Story By
Veronica Jongenelen
Photos by Don Delphia
Bob Hodges, Lawrence grad student, shapes the end of a piece with a pair of tongs. The glass is slowly turned and pressure is gradually applied.
With the aid of a rack, the piece is slowly rotated in the oven on the end of a blowpipe.
Bob periodically blows air into a blowpipe as he shapes the glass.