The glory hole.
Yours truly blowing a glass Easter ornament.
My instructor adding a hanging loop prior to placing it in the annealing oven.
I spent five days last week in the Finger Lakes region of New York state...
...and boy, did I have a wonderful time!
My best friend and I made quite a few stops on our brief trip...
...and I'd like to share some of them with you.
We started in Corning, New York by making blown glass ornaments for Easter...
...and if you haven't ever seen this done, it's truly magical!
The glass is held at unimaginable temperatures...
...where it behaves like a rather viscous liquid.
My only contribution to the making of my ornament was in the blowing...
...and, in fact, I ruined the first one that I tried because, as they jokingly told me, "I'm too full of hot air!" Grin.
Glass at these temperatures would crack if it's cooled too quickly...
...so it's held overnight in an annealing oven...
...where the temperature is slowly reduced from 900 degrees F to room temperature.
While we were in Corning, we also visited The Corning Museum of Glass...
...where we saw lots of gorgeous modern art glass, antique examples of glass through the centuries, and even learned how glass is used in industrial
and scientific ways.
Next time: My pilgrimage to The Moosewood Restaurant!
