First day at the glass department

Today I had my first day helping out at the glass department. I was asked to help out rebuilding their furnaces and as I had never done this before I was very interested in helping out. The first furnace was basically already finished and only needed some final placement of the heating elements which went very smoothly. Unfortunately the other furnace was another story. The pot where the glass sits in has cracked open which means that a lot of glass had leaked out finding its way everywhere! The technician told me she had never seen a furnace in such a bad shape. For me it doesn't matter that much since I can now help rebuilding the whole thing experiencing how it is done, but I realize that this is not something you would like to happen in your department. It will take a long time to rebuild and we might not be able to finish it before the students start in in 2 weeks. Luckily there are 2 of them so there should be one ready for them to work with.

This is a picture of the roof that was made for the first kiln, the heating elements will be going down through the holes into the furnace area.

Here is a picture of what the top looks like when the elements are in place, they just need to be connected.

And this shows the roof of the second furnace, there was a gap in between one of the elements and the insulation and as you can see the heat did some damage over time.

This is the second furnace once we removed the top insulation and started on clearing the front out aswell.

On this picture you can see the pot that has cracked, we will have to replace pretty much everything.

Hopefully I will be able to show you a picture of what the finished furnace looks like soon.

The Third Man (now open)

Today I had quite a busy day with several appointments. I started with a short meeting at Urban Outfitters whom have given me the opportunity to exhibit during November/December (which I am very excited about, and will tell you more about as soon as I know it). After that I went by the Third Man Lunch cafe on Queensferry St. which has now opened and is showing my work. The place turned out very nice and the food is amazing (I got to try some of their bread which is made by a local baker and I loved it!). So if you are around in Edinburgh you should go and check it out, its a couple of door's down from Wannaburger.
After that I went to the college to meet up with the glass departments technician, she called me earlier this week to ask me if I could help her rebuilding the glass kiln (this is the actual kiln/furnace that melts/stores the glass that is used for glassblowing). As I am very interested to see how these kilns are build I couldn't say no and I will start tomorrow.

A new beginning

As I walked through Glasgow the other day I bumped into a sculpture made by one of my tutors from last year (Kenny Hunter). I thought that this would be a nice moment to close down the blog for my college and continue it as my Artist in Residence blog. As some of you will already know I got accepted for that possition and am now waiting for a letter to tell me when to start.
I am really happy about all of this and can't wait for the year to begin and just make things without having to read badly writen pieces and discuss them without gaining anything from it. Its an amazing feeling to finaly feel free!