I know Kung-Fu - Jennifer Umphress class

There is a bit in 'The Matrix' where Keanu Reeves is plugged in, and they start uploading martial arts information into his brain. When asked how he feels, he just says, 'Woa! I know Kung-Fu!' Well, I sorta know how he feels now.

Jennifer Umphress working on an Octopus

This weekend I went for a short 3 day course at Diana East's lovely studio at the Old Dairy in Narborough. I felt very lucky to be able to get lessons from Jennifer Umphress who produces some really stunning sea life glass sculptures. It's so rare to get a chance to take borosilicate lessons in the UK from someone of her calibre, so the first pleasant surprise was Jessica Landau  had come along too to act as Teaching Assistant! So, combined with it being a really small class, we got really well looked after and the opportunity for some really intense teaching, almost one-to-one on many occasions. We actually discovered that Jennifer normally teaches this course over two weeks, so we really were getting the intense full-on version. Typical that I had a cold that weekend, and a cough that occasionally interrupted my lampworking!

I won't go into full details now, I'm pretty tired, but they were such excellent teachers, and refreshingly open about sharing techniques and skills with us. I'm also not going to post loads of photo's of what I managed to make, as they aren't as good as I know I can do with some more practise. I was really intent on trying to learn as much as possible, I know the real work comes now as I practise, practise, practise all that we covered - and we covered an awful lot!



Turtle

The first day we made some little cute whale sculptures, which had a really tricky fold technique in their tail (literally!) A bit of practise on those and xmas tree decorations, and it was straight in to making turtles and pendants. The next day was jellyfish, which gave me a chance to brush up on my techniques for these and see how I could improve, and then into some 'woooooaaaa' moments as Jennifer demo'ed a huge seahorse sculpture, which was incredibly elegant and stunning - and then it was our turn!

Sea Horse

Quite nerve racking and tricky to do, I'm certainly going to have to practise that one! Luckly Jessica was on hand to help save one from becoming just a melted blob of scrap glass! Jessica then showed us how to make a small pendant size version (it was incredibly tricky and delicate) before one last demo of the day from Jennifer, of a manta ray, which was just open-jaw-stunning!



Manta Ray, the picture doesn't do justice to it!

After a lovely meal with everyone on the course at the local Indian restaurant, (which bizarrely doubles as a hotel where a few of us stayed), I woke on the last day with ideas already buzzing around my head of ways I could use some of the new techniques. We were straight into making huge Angelfish though - I loved making these, they are both chunky and elegant, and have room for some experimenting too.



Jennifer then took some time to talk us through and show how to do some incredibly clever stuff to mount our work, I think I could actually feel my brain filling up at this point! They were both so open at sharing skills and techniques that I've seen used on sculptures that I'd not imagined I'd be able to easily learn, or anyone would be so happy to share. This was some serious glass 'Kung-Fu!' Along with my brain filling up, so was my note book, every page has techniques and snippets of information that was gladly imparted to us. We were desperately running out of time (and oxygen) but there was just enough of both for us to learn how to make little octopus pendants, before the final demo where Jennifer made one of her signature 3D octopuses. Although she said we'd probably not need to see each leg put on as it might be boring for us, none of us moved! It was quite awe-inspiring to see, I did get a few photos but my phone camera was just too slow and shaky.


Taking a hot octopus in hand!

After buying a few colour rods (errr, ok, many rods) we all regrettably said goodbye and headed off. It both flew past, but was so full and inspiring, and it was such a treat to spend so much time with so many fellow UK lampworkers too, and chat about the world of glass. In fact there was so much more that happened and we covered in such a short time that I can't cover in such a short post!

I certainly have a lot to do this week after the expo,  I don't know where some of these new techniques and ideas will take me, but I certainly feel that I've got the confidence to go and now take on so much more - now that I know glass Kung-Fu!


My notebook, this is how many pages I filled during the weekend!

T-Minus 8 days... and counting...

In a few days I'll temporarily close my Etsy shop (so if you have you're eye on anything please grab it before next Monday!) as we're off to Birmingham for the MCM Comic-con & Memorabilia Expo at the NEC on 16-17th March. This is the first time I've been at this event, so not sure what to expect - appart from the chance to get a really good Balti curry of course!

New test alien lifeform

What is familiar is the impending chaos and worry I haven't got/done/made something, even this quick shot shows how I'm already getting burried under boxes and bits. As it was, I was going to write this blog a few days ago, and not had a chance to until this morning.

Somewhere, I put it down here somewhere....

 Quite a few things have had to go on hold, including inventing new Aliens, however I couldn't resist the chance to show you this little fellow. He needs a little more work, as this was a test piece, then a few more to keep him company and then a nice rock to mount the colony on. I'd imagine he's a sea urchin, the tendrils ontop will have stinging points to catch any unwary alien fish, and grip onto rocks on the shoreline. I have been rather inspired after seeing a post about the Cambrian explosion of life, http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/18/weird-youth-animal-kingdom/ . This was a weird period when nature threw some very odd creatures together, it seems however strange some of my alien fauna and flora are, nature has got there before me with some really strange strangeness!

Oxygen

I was about to reply to a comment left by Ephemera to last weeks blog, but it started me thinking about the different ways creative people need to ‘fill the well’ of creativity.

For writers, although they claim to need a log cabin in the mountains to complete their work, when what they really thrive on is life. That constant being out there, milling with people, having new experiences, and the discipline of routine to keep their lives and mind in order (and I live with one, so I know how disorganised they can be without a routine!) It is all this experiences and people they meet that both keep their feet on the ground whilst providing the back of their heads with new ideas and characters; it is what fills their wells.

For people like me visual language is more important, which I think is why we suffer the daily grind rather than revelling in it; unless luckily already employed in a creative career, which then we would unlikely be compelled to branch out into our own workshops and studios. For us the routine of seeing the same faces on the same trains, in the same offices, sat at the same screens, becomes the slow death of the artist. We turn inwards and more often than not it’s self-esteem that suffers first ‘if I was a better artist, I wouldn’t be here,’ and so the slow rot begins…

So last weekend we went off for a day at the seaside, Walton-on-the-Naze, which is a lovely bit of crumbling coastline just beyond the bucket & spade hell (for me) of Clacton. The railways bus-replacement service turned it instead into a surprisingly enjoyable adventure as we got the slow route drive around country lanes and villages we’d normally speed though on the trains. A big plate of fish & chips, walk along beach to the Naze tower, and then back home. I didn’t feel like it had blown the cobwebs entirely away, but certainly felt like I’d been away for a week, not a day.

However to combat the daily grind, which has been rather more oppressive than usual, I have taken the rare step of taking an entire week off rather than just an odd day here and there. I also raided the piggy bank and finally invested in a much needed 2nd oxycon unit. These are a great alternative to oxygen tanks, which although they produce a better flame they are very expensive and dangerous to have around. Oxycons take oxygen from the air and condense it, not as pure but it means when they are turned off there is hardly any compressed oxygen in them so they are safe! Here is a picture of my current one, I shall take some time to also tidy the workshop and find a new home for the second one. This will allow me more control over the colours in boro, when there is not enough oxygen in the flame, the flame ‘steals’ oxygen from the hot glass making some colours turn muddy and even change colour! I have one lovely metallic black that each time I’ve tried using it, it’s gone cream instead! I am looking forward to making some marbles with that one in it’s true colour soon, plus a few other very special new bits of glass I am still awaiting from USA; more in another post about those soon ;-)