How It's Made: Glass Sculptures
Vocab level: C1
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The use of glass as an artistic medium dates back to ancient Egypt.
Despite the obvious fragility of glass sculptures, this art form has an enduring appeal.
The transparency of glass often has a ghostly quality.
They're tangible works of art that are skillfully crafted.
With this glass sculpture of a horse, the artist's two passions come together: art and horsemanship.
The artist takes inspiration from her horse, observing the swell of his muscles as he romps,
in order to create the same sense of movement in glass.
She then draws a series of sketches of the horse in different stances.
These sketches are an artistic study.
They help her work out the sculpture's form before actually creating one.
She cleaned solid glass rods to prepare them for sculpting.
This is borosilicate glass, which is more resistant to thermal shock than other kinds of glass.
She brings the glass into the flame of a torch to soften it.
Once softened, she can fuse two of the rods together.
Then, using tweezers and flat knife-like tools,
she sculpts the glass into the shape of the horse's hips and legs.
She works quickly so the glass doesn't have a chance to cool and fracture.
She adds a smaller piece of glass and forms it into a tail.
She constantly turns the glass as she works it to make sure it looks good from all angles.
She melts glass in front of the hips to build up the body
and shape the horse's belly, back, and chest.
This is intensive and precision work.
The piece must be exposed to a well-adjusted flame and constantly moved
so it doesn't become too hot and melt too much.
She adds glass to the front and sculpts the shoulders and part of the front legs.
She removes a little piece of extra glass.
She deposits this sizzling unwanted bit in water to cool it down...
and dispose of it safely.
She does more work on the front legs.
She'll refine them and form hooves later.
But now she bakes the partially sculpted glass horse in a kiln.
This is the first annealing, which realigns molecules to prevent cracking.
She forms the head and mane separately from the body.
This is more intricate work.
The features are much more detailed, so she uses smaller tools.
Once she shaped the eye sockets, she melts little blobs of black glass into them.
She sculpts the eyes with a flat knife.
She carves creases above them to create an eyelid effect.
She adds glass for the ears.
Then, using a tool called a masher, she pinches the ears to squeeze them thinner.
She heats them again.
This process can cause the ears to stick together, so she cuts them to separate them.
She curls the ears using tweezers and tweaks their position on the horse's head.
She melts the base of the head to the body, and they become one.
She fuses more glass to the back to craft a mane.
After another annealing, she returns to the legs.
She softens them with a flame again and adds definition to the fetlock joints.
She cuts the tips to create a more level surface.
She melts black glass onto the ends of the legs and sculpts it into the shape of hooves.
With a series of tools, she tweaks each hoof
until she's satisfied this glass horse will stand the way she wants it to.
After another annealing, she shines a polarized light through the sculpture
and examines it for stresses that could compromise its structure.
Finding none, this galloping work of glass art is complete.
It's been made with great care and caring.
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