Serendipities Studio Tour
Well, now you've done it! You have clicked on the studio tour page, so I'm going to give you your money's worth! Seriously though, I have spent many hours prowling around on the net trying to see what other artists do and how they do it. Many have been gracious enough to show their studios and tell what equipment they use. This has helped me through the years make some good equipment purchasing decisions along the way. So, I'm going to take you on a tour below of my studio and touch on the most important pieces of equipment I use to get my job done! Keep in mind that I work in controlled chaos. It is a two part system really - the area is either controlled - or in complete chaos! With that said....please excuse the messy areas. I find it impossible to keep everything straight, but also impossible to be creative in a messy space. You'll figure out which places I'm most creative in - they are the most organized spaces. Also keep in mind - if you are setting up a studio for the first time - how important it is to research SAFETY with the equipment and chemicals you will be using. I won't be covering it here, and it is very important for your health to know the things you are exposed to, short term and long term.
Onward! Here is my studio. Essentially, it takes up the back third of the main room in our basement. It was originally intended to be the pool table/ping pong area - but as you can clearly see from this picture - and much to the dismay of my children - once the ping pong table went on top of the pool table it became immediately apparent that THIS was a GREAT work table! Anyone else see that?
I'm just going to go around the room from left to right and show you what is there.
The next picture is of the Paragon Home Artist 120 kiln. This was the second kiln I purchased after I needed to do true production work once I was in The Cotton Company. I really deliberated over this purchase because this is actually a pottery kiln, not a glass kiln. It has the ability to ramp just like a glass kiln, but it cone fires as well for pottery firings. This will end up being convenient once my daughter starts taking up pottery! It even states it is the perfect kiln for doing Raku pottery - sounds exciting! As with all new kilns, I had to do multiple runs to learn the correct ramping schedule for this particular kiln, along with what pieces did the best on what shelves in the kiln. The neat thing about this kiln is it has a retractable handle on it (there in the front) that is similar to what is on a suitcase along with wheels making this kiln SUPER portable. It also runs on 120v which was another plus for me. I didn't want to have to switch out the dedicated circuit I already had in place for a 240v circuit or have to put it in my garage. A safety note: you really are supposed to have your kiln in a well ventilated, non-flammable area - especially if you are firing pottery. So no monkey see monkey do here, ok? Also note the cyborg silver cabling coming off the side. I had them install a dead man's switch - basically it cuts off electricity to the coils if you open the lid past an inch or so. Not a good thing to electrocute yourself whilst having fun!
The next picture shows the polishing station I have set up. When I started doing the silver fingerprint pendants I was primarily using my flexshaft to do the final polishing after tumbling. Once I purchased this guy I realized what I had been missing out on! It cut my polishing time by two thirds and makes a much nicer shine on the silver. You have to be careful with this guy though, it is probably the most dangerous piece of equipment I have in the studio. You can take a finger off or get your hair caught in it and ripped out if you are not careful - luckily I'm not speaking from experience here. I also mask up when I'm using it, even though it has a vent system built in. I have no desire for silicosis when I'm old! I also have my color laser printer along with my laptop that I use for all of my print work. I use it to make my tags, tri-folds, advertising etc.
The next picture is of my Morton Portable Glass Shop. When I first started fusing glass and dichroic, I hand cut every little piece - freehand. This is ok when you are playing around and learning, but once you are in production mode, not so much. The Morton glass cutting system makes straight cutting a breeze, consistent and fast. I also highly recommend the Toyo pistol grip glass cutter. It is the easiest to use and ergonomic as well.
Remember what I said about chaos? Well, don't look under the bench in the next picture (no, seriously - quit looking!). This space is actually inside a closet, so I'm not as compelled to keep it completely straight. Almost every space in the studio is multi-use - this space happens to be multi-multi use! As you can see, I have a space for soldering and pickling. I also do all of my mechanical glass cutting and grinding in here. I use the Taurus 3 ring saw to cut glass blanks. I am thinking this is one of the better ring saws that isn't a gazillion dollars, but I have been a little disappointed with some of the plastic parts as well as the really expensive blades. It can be a little slow in speed as well - but I am usually trying to go at "roadrunner" speed anyway - so maybe I'm not the best judge for speed. The next thing is my DiamondMax glass grinder. It was the second piece of equipment I bought and I LOVE IT! I use it to grind down the edges of the dichroic before I fire it as well as using it to meticulously clean bead release out of the inside of all the lampwork beads I make. I find it works much quicker and does a better job than using a diamond bit on my flexshaft like a lot of people do. To the left of that and outside the picture frame is a Ryobi drill press. This thing is massive people! I use it for basically one job - with a one inch diamond core drill bit to cut out 1 inch dichroic cabachons for things like wine stoppers, letter openers and purse hangers. Couldn't make those without it!
The next shot is of my silversmithing bench. The main thing this space gets used for is to turn my beads into pendants. I also work on the fingerprint jewelry here as well and occassionally tinker around with silversmithing when I have the time. I purchased the dust collection system just for when I am working with the PMC (precious metal clay). When you are finishing off the PMC when it is still in clay form, you get a lot of dust from the clay. This dust is not good to breath in because it contains pure silver. I was told by one of my vendors that if you enhale enough silver, it could turn your skin blue - can you imagine - I could try out for the Blue Man Group!! My tumbler is on the left there and I find the Foredom Flexshaft a very handy tool to have for many reasons. I can use it to drill holes in my glass pendants to use a jump ring as a bail, to polish metal, cut metal, shape things - just a ton of stuff. I purchased the lower end at the time, but haven't regretted it. It has enough horse power to do what I need to do since I'm not a full time silversmith.
This is just a picture of some of the books I have purchased on my learning journey. As I mentioned, I have taken several classes but most of what I know I have learned through reading, reading, reading and then DOING, DOING, DOING. For silversmithing, I love all of Tim McCreight's books - he covers some great topics with PMC as well. For lampworking, my b-i-b-l-e was Corina Tettinger's Passing the Flame. I inhaled every page of this book when I was first learning. I find most of the glass industry magazines to be most helpful with new ideas and concepts as well. Oh, also - any of the "Penland Book of ***" books are great. The rest of the books are pretty well worn. Some of them more helpful than others. If you are just getting started and have a question about a certain book before you buy it and you see it on my shelf, just email me and I'll be happy to give you my two cents on if it is worth it. My pottery books aren't on there yet - the stack is beside my bed. If any of you have recommendations there, I'd love to hear them. I'm finding pottery to be a little overwhelming to learn from a book, wedging along is a difficult thing to explain verbally and with one picture. Maybe a class is in order.
Now to my FAVORITE space - my lampworking bench. Ahh, this is a magical place for me. Basically, if you can dream it up....you can make it....and in many different sizes, shapes and colors too! I just love how versatile working in the flame can be. If you've read any other artist's websites, you have probably already heard the word "zen". It is true, when I am by myself and in front of the flame - the flame has my total attention and focus (wise right?). Everything else simply goes away (except when the $#@% phone rings!). It can be a very zenlike experience, and I love that. I just get in the zone! But, at the same time, I find myself holding my breath a lot too. Playing with hot glass is a real trick. You have to make sure you keep the piece hot enough so that it doesn't crack (glass gets "stress" in it when different parts cool at different rates, and when it cools too quickly in general), but cool enough so you don't melt in whatever detail you are working on. The breath holding usually happens when I'm working on a sculptural piece, like the cherry blossom trees or one of my animals. I just HATE being 30 minutes into a single bead and then messing it up - hence the holding of the breath at stressful moments. I know I'll have this thing mastered when I'm like a good yoga instructor and I just breath, breath, breath no matter what I'm working on :o) Well..... I'm not holding my breath on that one!
So, what you see is my glass collection, which is primarly Italain Effetre with a dose of Vetrefond, CIM (Creation is Messy), Double Helix, Precision, Kugler, Bullseye and a smidge of boro. I have a Paragon SC3 kiln which was my very first equipment purchase which I bought to fuse dichoic glass with and to fire the PMC. This baby has been used a lot. I have since swapped out the original door with a bead annealer door so I can use it to digitally anneal my beads - very handy and a must if you are going to sell your beads - no way around that. I also have a Nortel Major torch with a minor topfire and an 850CFPM vent hood. I bought the hood on ebay from a reseller whom I found out later resides in Taiwan, but sells "from" Texas. I found this out the hard way when my light assembly burned out after 3 months of use and had a bear of a time getting them to fix it under warranty. After several threats, they finally shipped me a new hood. Moral of that story - buy local if possible. And the last, but most important piece of equipment is tucked under the table - my Extreme Oxygen MX15 oxygen concentrator. I don't know of any soft glass lampworker that isn't going to tell you their oxycon was the best purchase they made unless they have a never ending supply of pure oxygen delivered straight to their door. I spent months trekking a very heavy, very large oxygen tank to and from AirGas for refills every 8 days before my back and my wallet finally said ENOUGH. Besides, the thought of driving back home with essentially a live torpedo in the back of your truck is really motivation enough to switch to an oxycon any day! I would recommend buying the best one of these you can afford. It can mean working slowly or fast according to how much oxygen you can push. Mine works great, but I'm already wanting to chain two together.....
Here is a close up of the torch
Oh, wow - I don't know how I forgot to mention the Creation Station. Whoever came up with this little guy is a genius. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, it is the butterfly looking thing around the torch - it helps you situate your elbows, arms and hands around the torch for leverage. One of the first things I noticed when I started trying to escape the brainiac world of computer networking is that I went from my brain hurting at the end of the day to my entire body hurting after being in the studio for one day! I can't say enough how important ergonomics and posture are when you are doing this kind of work. I'm trying to keep from getting repetitive motion injuries as well - turning that mandrel for hours at a time is doing a number on my left hand already (I know, I know - I need to buy one of those electric mandrel turning thingies - if money were no object!!). OK, back to the Creation Station. Remember how I said I inhaled Corina's Passing the Flame book? Well, I definately couldn't master some of it until I bought this thing. Your ability to have your hands steady doing this work is imperative to having control. I would say having the Creation Station increased my accuracy 10 fold as well as releaving a lot of stress from my neck and shoulders (no, this is not paid advertising ;o) ). Don't get me wrong, I still get neck and shoulder pain after sitting at the torch all day, but at least I CAN sit at the torch all day. Without this system, that wouldn't happen.
And I've shown you the chaotic area - now to the controlled area. I usually clean up my lampworking bench after each session. Something about coming to a clean bench helps with my creativity, sort of like a tabula rasa of sorts. I don't do well with clutter here. So, one of the ways I orgainze it is by having these bud vases that I bought at Target. If I pull stringers for a bead that I make repetitively, I label a vase and stick them in there, ready to go for the next time.
Ah, what's this? My daily dose of Vitamin C (chocolate) and Vitamin DC (dark chocolate)! Actually these are little gifts my teenager brings me. She knows I like them, so for some reason they appear in the studio periodically for my consumption. Notice their close proximity to the blue kiln? It creates the perfect ambient temperature to give the chocolate a little head start on the melting point for optimal mouth appeal! If you haven't tried the Ritter Sport Cornflake bar (it's made in Germany and we get them at Target when we are lucky), you should. It is milk chocolate with corn flakes mixed in - it's the bomb, seriously - I ain't playin'!!! Sadly enough to report, if you have been clicking on all the links I have been providing you....that one is the coolest - check it out.... See how the Cornflake bar is the first in line? That's because it's the best!
Now for the bad boy of the studio. This is Benny, the studio cat. I think I mentioned on another page that he has started using my vent hood as a bridge from one cabinet over to the space next to my glass rods where he likes to hang out while I'm torching. He is a Bengal and for some reason they have this *need* to be in the highest locations they can get to, sort of a surveying the land thing I think. I finally caught him in the act with the camera. Usually when I grab my camera he hussles on across because he knows I don't like him doing it. He sort of looks like I'm telling him to "stick 'em up!".
Here he is settled into his spot, fat and happy. He really is quite the prima donna. I guess he is like my chocolate. Notice his close proximity above the kiln? He likes the warmth......
This is my attempt at orgainization for the odds and ends around the studio. Findings, raw materials, metals, frits, etc go in labeled containers. Notice the Ipod docking station. I *have* to have my music!!
Here is the photography setup. Admittedly, I am no photography expert. This has actually been a frustrating thing for me to master, but hopefully I do an OK job with representation. I have never had to wear more hats than with this business!
I use the Lowell Ego lights with the Ego reflectors as well as the sweep. These lights use full spectrum bulbs which is nice. My cameras are the Sony digital Handycam (the Zeiss lens is very nice) as well as the Sony Cyber-shot 8.1Mp. My wish is that I would have purchased an SLR with a macro lens. Someday....(over the rainbow - when I get all this other stuff completely paid for :o).
Well, if you have made it to here and read all of my blibber blabber - you deserve a medal!!
The next picture is of my Morton Portable Glass Shop. When I first started fusing glass and dichroic, I hand cut every little piece - freehand. This is ok when you are playing around and learning, but once you are in production mode, not so much. The Morton glass cutting system makes straight cutting a breeze, consistent and fast. I also highly recommend the Toyo pistol grip glass cutter. It is the easiest to use and ergonomic as well.
Remember what I said about chaos? Well, don't look under the bench in the next picture (no, seriously - quit looking!). This space is actually inside a closet, so I'm not as compelled to keep it completely straight. Almost every space in the studio is multi-use - this space happens to be multi-multi use! As you can see, I have a space for soldering and pickling. I also do all of my mechanical glass cutting and grinding in here. I use the Taurus 3 ring saw to cut glass blanks. I am thinking this is one of the better ring saws that isn't a gazillion dollars, but I have been a little disappointed with some of the plastic parts as well as the really expensive blades. It can be a little slow in speed as well - but I am usually trying to go at "roadrunner" speed anyway - so maybe I'm not the best judge for speed. The next thing is my DiamondMax glass grinder. It was the second piece of equipment I bought and I LOVE IT! I use it to grind down the edges of the dichroic before I fire it as well as using it to meticulously clean bead release out of the inside of all the lampwork beads I make. I find it works much quicker and does a better job than using a diamond bit on my flexshaft like a lot of people do. To the left of that and outside the picture frame is a Ryobi drill press. This thing is massive people! I use it for basically one job - with a one inch diamond core drill bit to cut out 1 inch dichroic cabachons for things like wine stoppers, letter openers and purse hangers. Couldn't make those without it!
The next shot is of my silversmithing bench. The main thing this space gets used for is to turn my beads into pendants. I also work on the fingerprint jewelry here as well and occassionally tinker around with silversmithing when I have the time. I purchased the dust collection system just for when I am working with the PMC (precious metal clay). When you are finishing off the PMC when it is still in clay form, you get a lot of dust from the clay. This dust is not good to breath in because it contains pure silver. I was told by one of my vendors that if you enhale enough silver, it could turn your skin blue - can you imagine - I could try out for the Blue Man Group!! My tumbler is on the left there and I find the Foredom Flexshaft a very handy tool to have for many reasons. I can use it to drill holes in my glass pendants to use a jump ring as a bail, to polish metal, cut metal, shape things - just a ton of stuff. I purchased the lower end at the time, but haven't regretted it. It has enough horse power to do what I need to do since I'm not a full time silversmith.
This is just a picture of some of the books I have purchased on my learning journey. As I mentioned, I have taken several classes but most of what I know I have learned through reading, reading, reading and then DOING, DOING, DOING. For silversmithing, I love all of Tim McCreight's books - he covers some great topics with PMC as well. For lampworking, my b-i-b-l-e was Corina Tettinger's Passing the Flame. I inhaled every page of this book when I was first learning. I find most of the glass industry magazines to be most helpful with new ideas and concepts as well. Oh, also - any of the "Penland Book of ***" books are great. The rest of the books are pretty well worn. Some of them more helpful than others. If you are just getting started and have a question about a certain book before you buy it and you see it on my shelf, just email me and I'll be happy to give you my two cents on if it is worth it. My pottery books aren't on there yet - the stack is beside my bed. If any of you have recommendations there, I'd love to hear them. I'm finding pottery to be a little overwhelming to learn from a book, wedging along is a difficult thing to explain verbally and with one picture. Maybe a class is in order.
Now to my FAVORITE space - my lampworking bench. Ahh, this is a magical place for me. Basically, if you can dream it up....you can make it....and in many different sizes, shapes and colors too! I just love how versatile working in the flame can be. If you've read any other artist's websites, you have probably already heard the word "zen". It is true, when I am by myself and in front of the flame - the flame has my total attention and focus (wise right?). Everything else simply goes away (except when the $#@% phone rings!). It can be a very zenlike experience, and I love that. I just get in the zone! But, at the same time, I find myself holding my breath a lot too. Playing with hot glass is a real trick. You have to make sure you keep the piece hot enough so that it doesn't crack (glass gets "stress" in it when different parts cool at different rates, and when it cools too quickly in general), but cool enough so you don't melt in whatever detail you are working on. The breath holding usually happens when I'm working on a sculptural piece, like the cherry blossom trees or one of my animals. I just HATE being 30 minutes into a single bead and then messing it up - hence the holding of the breath at stressful moments. I know I'll have this thing mastered when I'm like a good yoga instructor and I just breath, breath, breath no matter what I'm working on :o) Well..... I'm not holding my breath on that one!
So, what you see is my glass collection, which is primarly Italain Effetre with a dose of Vetrefond, CIM (Creation is Messy), Double Helix, Precision, Kugler, Bullseye and a smidge of boro. I have a Paragon SC3 kiln which was my very first equipment purchase which I bought to fuse dichoic glass with and to fire the PMC. This baby has been used a lot. I have since swapped out the original door with a bead annealer door so I can use it to digitally anneal my beads - very handy and a must if you are going to sell your beads - no way around that. I also have a Nortel Major torch with a minor topfire and an 850CFPM vent hood. I bought the hood on ebay from a reseller whom I found out later resides in Taiwan, but sells "from" Texas. I found this out the hard way when my light assembly burned out after 3 months of use and had a bear of a time getting them to fix it under warranty. After several threats, they finally shipped me a new hood. Moral of that story - buy local if possible. And the last, but most important piece of equipment is tucked under the table - my Extreme Oxygen MX15 oxygen concentrator. I don't know of any soft glass lampworker that isn't going to tell you their oxycon was the best purchase they made unless they have a never ending supply of pure oxygen delivered straight to their door. I spent months trekking a very heavy, very large oxygen tank to and from AirGas for refills every 8 days before my back and my wallet finally said ENOUGH. Besides, the thought of driving back home with essentially a live torpedo in the back of your truck is really motivation enough to switch to an oxycon any day! I would recommend buying the best one of these you can afford. It can mean working slowly or fast according to how much oxygen you can push. Mine works great, but I'm already wanting to chain two together.....
Here is a close up of the torch
Oh, wow - I don't know how I forgot to mention the Creation Station. Whoever came up with this little guy is a genius. In case you have no idea what I'm talking about, it is the butterfly looking thing around the torch - it helps you situate your elbows, arms and hands around the torch for leverage. One of the first things I noticed when I started trying to escape the brainiac world of computer networking is that I went from my brain hurting at the end of the day to my entire body hurting after being in the studio for one day! I can't say enough how important ergonomics and posture are when you are doing this kind of work. I'm trying to keep from getting repetitive motion injuries as well - turning that mandrel for hours at a time is doing a number on my left hand already (I know, I know - I need to buy one of those electric mandrel turning thingies - if money were no object!!). OK, back to the Creation Station. Remember how I said I inhaled Corina's Passing the Flame book? Well, I definately couldn't master some of it until I bought this thing. Your ability to have your hands steady doing this work is imperative to having control. I would say having the Creation Station increased my accuracy 10 fold as well as releaving a lot of stress from my neck and shoulders (no, this is not paid advertising ;o) ). Don't get me wrong, I still get neck and shoulder pain after sitting at the torch all day, but at least I CAN sit at the torch all day. Without this system, that wouldn't happen.
A close up of the Paragon SC3 kiln with annealer door option:
Ah, what's this? My daily dose of Vitamin C (chocolate) and Vitamin DC (dark chocolate)! Actually these are little gifts my teenager brings me. She knows I like them, so for some reason they appear in the studio periodically for my consumption. Notice their close proximity to the blue kiln? It creates the perfect ambient temperature to give the chocolate a little head start on the melting point for optimal mouth appeal! If you haven't tried the Ritter Sport Cornflake bar (it's made in Germany and we get them at Target when we are lucky), you should. It is milk chocolate with corn flakes mixed in - it's the bomb, seriously - I ain't playin'!!! Sadly enough to report, if you have been clicking on all the links I have been providing you....that one is the coolest - check it out.... See how the Cornflake bar is the first in line? That's because it's the best!
Now for the bad boy of the studio. This is Benny, the studio cat. I think I mentioned on another page that he has started using my vent hood as a bridge from one cabinet over to the space next to my glass rods where he likes to hang out while I'm torching. He is a Bengal and for some reason they have this *need* to be in the highest locations they can get to, sort of a surveying the land thing I think. I finally caught him in the act with the camera. Usually when I grab my camera he hussles on across because he knows I don't like him doing it. He sort of looks like I'm telling him to "stick 'em up!".
Here he is settled into his spot, fat and happy. He really is quite the prima donna. I guess he is like my chocolate. Notice his close proximity above the kiln? He likes the warmth......
This is my attempt at orgainization for the odds and ends around the studio. Findings, raw materials, metals, frits, etc go in labeled containers. Notice the Ipod docking station. I *have* to have my music!!
Here is the photography setup. Admittedly, I am no photography expert. This has actually been a frustrating thing for me to master, but hopefully I do an OK job with representation. I have never had to wear more hats than with this business!
I use the Lowell Ego lights with the Ego reflectors as well as the sweep. These lights use full spectrum bulbs which is nice. My cameras are the Sony digital Handycam (the Zeiss lens is very nice) as well as the Sony Cyber-shot 8.1Mp. My wish is that I would have purchased an SLR with a macro lens. Someday....(over the rainbow - when I get all this other stuff completely paid for :o).
And last but not least....here is an old picture of me at the torch shortly after I received it. Notice the smile on my face. I still get that smile on my face when I'm at the torch....because I love it ;o) Happiness is a torch and a never ending supply of glass, propane and oxygen!
Well, if you have made it to here and read all of my blibber blabber - you deserve a medal!!
I hope that what I have written has been helpful and informative. If you have any questions or comments about anything, please feel free to shoot me an email! Don't forget to hit the Shop tab and check out what I make at my online store at Etsy.