If you remember, today I was at Pukeburg in Nybro! This is the place, established 1913 I think it said on the factory... very pretty.
These pictures don't really do it justice, or maybe it was so nice to be outside at lunch after sweating all morning that it looks better in my mind? Like when you are super hungry even ramen noodles are delish?
Well here is some of the things that I saw them blow on Friday, which feels AGES ago weirdly. They turned out pretty cool though they still need some cold working to be done on them by the students.
This is a graal turned inside out so the pattern (some sort of mosquito or wasp) is actually on the inside of the cheese/cake cover.
This graal turned out cool, it is a hand holding the piece. I think it looked better before it got so fat but I still like it now.
This is a lamp which is supposed to have a white piece inside of it I think. It is pretty big, black and has very nice straight and sharp lines.
So, the morning started at 9 when I surprisingly got introduced to the class of design students by their teacher Ole (or Ola, I don't know and I don't really care) Victor... we can just call him OV. Then we started working on making a graal blank for one of the students. This is Glenn and Josephine in the plaid and the student in black.... they dress just how design students should... all dark and artsy with glasses. Am I stereotyping?
This was my view a lot... sitting at the end of the bench getting ready to blow... That is Micke just past the glory hole and furnace talking to a student about their designs.
Here he is with Josephine gathering... sadly you can't see the AWESOME furnace, it looks like a rocket ship full of glass!
So, within the first hour I burned my finger... OK, no big deal.
Within in the second hour I had dropped a cake on the floor where it broke and burst into flames. A cake is the piece of stone that sits in front of the glory hole's hole to make it smaller.
When the piece of glass you are working on gets too big you have to reach in with this long iron stick and hook it, pull it out and put it on the floor in a metal bin. You do all this while being blasted with heat and balancing a very heavy, awkward stone on the end of a 3 ft skinny stick. It is no wonder I haven't dropped one before now! But I blame it ENTIRELY, ok maybe not entirely on the idiot OV. I don't like the guy (he showed me the school years ago and was a jerk still is today) but now I really think he is a class A idiot. I was changing the cake, he comes and stands behind me, between Micke and myself and when I back up to take the HOT, HEAVY cake out I bump into him! I get knocked off balance and promptly drop the cake. HE SAYS NOOOOOOOOOOOOTHING! Doesn't even acknowledge that it happened! Luckily, I kept it together (Josephine said she would have cried), Glenn helped me put the fire out and Micke just laughed and said "shit happens."
So, after lunch they brought us a new cake for the glory hole... Josephine and I put it on to get prepared for the next session and 20 minutes later we hear this loud BANG and chunks of hot stone fly through the air! We freak out for a minute then decide the cake exploded and it probably won't happen again right? No! 5 minutes later another explosion and more bits of dust and rocks fly about 15 ft into the air and we all jump, this CONTINUES to happen another 3 times! Turns out the cake hadn't been properly burnt (who knew?!?!) and that was why it was exploding. Not our fault but it did kind of feel like it anyway. Not a good day to be a cake at Pukeburg...
After that things went smoothly... they made some crazy creations and had a successful afternoon.
That guy in red is the dreaded OV... doesn't he look like a jerk!?
This piece is a crazy bottle with a hollow bit stuck perfectly on the bottom. Micke was very pleased with himself for pulling off that one and said "shit good" which is a weird Swedish saying when he finished it. It was really cool, but I have no idea what it is for...
All in all I had a good time, the people were nice, joking and laughing and helpful critics. I look forward to see what they made tomorrow when we can hold it on our hands! Also I look forward to not thinking I am going to break the cake each time I look at it! I am exhausted from concentrating so much today but it was fun and I really enjoyed it. Josephine was a bit sick and I am not 100% she will be there tomorrow, I hope so otherwise there will be a lot more running around for me I think!
So, tomorrow, no more dropping, or breaking or letting cakes burst into flames, or explode in general. I have been jumpy all day since then every time I hear a bang or something! I will try to take some more pics tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment