Tag: Jason Stropko glassmaker

… this is where if you were new to glassmaking you would learn about the fact that once in a while each ceramic melting pot, sitting inside the furnace, will develop a crack, due to erosion and unforeseeable factors.. Once the crack deepens it either causes molten glass to leak or an effect takes place that is best described as ‘cords’ developing in the glass, which float on top of the molten glass and can appear in the blown glass pieces as raised cord like areas.. This is rendering the molten glass a lower quality and hence creating an unworkable situation.

This is when it is time to face the challenge and begin a 10 day process of cooling the furnace and molten glass slowly (several days), changing the ceramic crucible (ceramic pot that holds the molten glass) and bringing the furnace and a new batch of glass back up to temperature. The entire process takes somewhere around 10 days.

Of course this can throw a real spanner in the works when multiple glassmakers all booked time to create glassworks, when students lined the doors to take classes… We got lucky and Jason is able to continue teaching his glassblowing classes at Glass Hand Studio, a Glass studio on the lovely island (which originally was a peninsula) Alameda, just down the road from Oakland. Jason had met the owner Prax recently at a Jeff Mack, goblet making workshop that Jason assisted at. We are really happy that Prax can host Jason’s classes!

Jason just received a whole batch of bookings for glassblowing classes through #Verlocal and we are pretty excited about meeting these new students who will be coming for individual short sessions. The first few classes will be at Glass Hand Studio in Alameda before we relocate back to Glow Glass, where Jason usually works with fellow glassmakers, creates his own glass and teaches…

#BayAreaGlass