Glass III

Glass II

<----
Here are some pics of me in Redwing at the Anderson Center working on my lenses. The Anderson center is an amazing place, sort of an art fort. Compleate with brick walls around the complex and a tower! Huge sculptures lurk around the campus and the glass studio at least was well lit, well ventilated, colorful and open. For artists looking for good studio space for ceramics or glass, this place would be heaven.

My lenses should be ready now. I didn't blow them, but rather made huge flat and ugly paperweights that I will then cut the lens out of. I will just use the top inch or so and toss the rest.

Glass is an amazing process, but I defiantly did not fall in love with it the way I fell in love with bronze or iron. It is much more akin to ceramics in the process. Blob of goo --> a vessel where castings is all about the mold making. For some reason I find that more appealing to work on. But I certainly appreciate hand blown glass more now! I go back next sunday for another afternoon where I will grind down and polish my lenses, and hopefully get to play a little too!

Lenses

Well to hedge my bets that my lens project is just tilting at windmills I bought six lenses off ebay to play with for about$18.
38 mm x 5 cm
38 mm x 20 cm
50 mm x 10 cm
50 mm x 20 cm
50 mm x 30 cm
75 mm x 20 cm

I am starting to spend away my stipend, that is good. I get my cameras tomorrow!

Projector

I am moving forward for my projector project. Right now I have my 4" LCD with back light removed attached to a board and a bright light bulb behind it. Take that with just one double convex lens I have from the physics department and boom there is my projector. I can get in about 90% of the image too! The corners are a bit rounded and the edges are kind of blurry, but besides that it looks great. I am going to toy with different light sources too. If this were a real magic lantern, it would use a kerosene lamp. I am not sure I can do that.. but it would be fun to try! Imagine a TV powered by a flickering lantern...

Next stop is to make my own lens. I have been talking to people about this and it seems possible. There is a guy at Carleton, their "instrument" maker (as in science instruments) that has been doing lenses for 30 years! And my friend and former boss Rick is working primarily in glass right now, so he can help too.

I was going to drop over $300 to take a 6 week glass course co-taught by Rick...but it filled up. Dang it!

Magic Lantern

I am home after a good night in the studio. I have been playing with lenses and am planing on making my own LCD magic lantern. The magic lantern was a device that was essentially a primitive slide projector that used handmade glass slides to project images. Mine would be the same, only instead of glass slides I would use LCD attached to a computer. Its idea! I have been having artists block for the past few months really. This whole apprenticeship feels like being a freshman again. All the structure that school had built in my life that I didn't really know was there is gone, and I guess I am building it up again for my self. Except uh-uho, I have a show in January! Lets hope the ideas flow...