Sometimes, surprises can be a very good thing. Many times they're not but this one is very welcome and special, indeed. Late Friday afternoon a message arrived from Donna Stevens, our good friend at the Planetary Society, informing us of their surprise.

As many of you are aware, Joy and I create the Planetary Society's Cosmos Award blown glass Saturns to be bestowed upon individuals for their outstanding public presentation of science. Each is produced in collaboration with Rick Sternbach, of Star Trek Production Design fame, who commissions us and also crafts the fine ebonized base over which our delicate glass sculptures float.

This particular one, the third in the series, was presented to Theoretical Physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking at The University of Cambridge, England. Superb, in and of itself, but wait... there's more!

Turns out that The Science Museum in London has mounted an exhibit: Stephen Hawking: A 70th Birthday Celebration.

From The Science Museum:

"The display features objects and papers primarily sourced from his own archives including handwritten notes on work with Roger Penrose, his drawing of the Hawking Radiation mechanism, the annotated script for a 1999 guest appearance on The Simpsons, and the blue suit he wore for a zero-gravity flight in 2007. The display also includes a specially recorded message and a selection of personal photographs from Hawking’s life and career that haven’t been seen before. A rarely-seen 1978 portrait by David Hockney is also featured.

This first ever display of items from the Hawking archive encourages visitors to reflect on the relationship between Hawking’s scientific achievements, particularly the work that established his reputation in the 1960s and ‘70s, and his immense success in popularizing astrophysics. Hawking and his daughter Lucy have been involved in the selection of objects for display."

Among these items significant to his life is our beautiful Saturn, floating amid the many diagrams, sketches, papers, books, photographs, models and mementos collected over the years. To say that we are honored again is an understatement. The juxtaposition of creativities, his with ours, is staggering. Never in my wildest dreams... (and I have some pretty wild dreams).

I had hoped that we would somehow come to meet one day. Dr. Hawking held the Lucasian Chair, a professorship of mathematics once held by Sir Issac Newton, Charles Babbage and P. A. M. Dirac, among only fourteen others since the chair was deeded in 1663. Meeting in person, someone in this esteemed professorship would be sobering, indeed.

Cosmology and philosophy have always been favorites of mine. Some time ago, I had a moment of clarity where many things align, fall into place and one can see farther than before. An understanding of the Universe came that was different and I knew that the only person to discuss this with was Stephen Hawking. It would surely be an interesting conversation. But how? Suddenly, I was presented with the possibility that my time had come. The stars had aligned and we were creating the Cosmos Award for him.

One cannot plan something like this. It does, however, come under the heading of: "Be careful what you wish for."

The presentation was to be in Pasadena and we would take time to drive there to attend the ceremony. Best to deliver the delicate Saturn than to needlessly risk damage during shipping, when we're not all that far away. It's been a long time between road trips, anyway, and getting out would do us good.

Alas, it was not to be. Just prior to the date, another surprise came; this one not so good. His doctors deemed travel was not advisable, so the ceremony was cancelled. The presentation would be in England instead. A Planetary Society contingent traveled there but we were not among them. We consulted on the crating specifications in which to ship the award to England, to ensure that it would not be damaged and, indeed, it did arrive safely; we just weren't accompanying it. That was the extent of our involvement in making the presentation a success and we are both very happy to have made this small contribution.

Still, it is a sobering thought to step back and realize how fortunate we are to have one of our children in his office where he can experience it each day and then to have it chosen to be in this wonderful exhibit, so that many may see it, too. The exhibit runs until April 9 if you happen to be in the area.

I wish that we could travel there to see it. A side trip to Cambridge would be in my mind constantly.

Events like these are what keeps a creator going. You work along in obscurity and then, Boom!, the light shines brightly but ever so briefly. Sobering to realize that the things we create will be here long after we are gone; cared for by people whom we will never meet. At least they will know that we were here and perhaps wonder about us, as we wonder now about them.

Mysterious, life is.

For further reading:

• Planetary Society: Charlene Anderson's Blog Post
• The Science Museum: Stephen Hawking: a 70th Birthday Celebration
• BBC News: In pictures: Science Museum's Stephen Hawking Exhibition
• MSNBC Cosmic Log: Stephen Hawking's Curios Explained
• More Brushes With Greatness: BJ's Short Bio

Joy and I both wish to convey our thanks and appreciation to the wonderful people at The Planetary Society for including us in their adventure.

Have you had a brush with greatness? Please let us know your thoughts by sharing in a comment.

Give Me Some Space! Many of our friends, colleagues and visitors to our blogs and websites are Space Buffs. Either they work in the space industry as scientists, astronomers, astrophysicists, teachers, space artists, or are just plain crazy about space. We are, too, and we work the space theme into a LOT of our creations. We have developed many different artworks in glass of various types and, as such, they are spread all through our websites. This requires persons seeking a unique gift that is space-related to become detectives and uncover many locations; perhaps missing just the special treasure that they have been searching for.

Organization (what's that?) to the rescue!
We've gathered all of our Blown Glass Space items: Planet Ornaments, Planet Bottle & Wine Stoppers, Planet Lighting, Astronomical Jewelry, Steampunk Rockets and spacey Greeting Cards into one rich location for easy browsing and ordering; as gifts for someone you know who will really appreciate your creativity or as a gift for yourself. Why not? You've been good... haven't you?

Tell Your Friends Far and Wide:
"Give Me Some Space!" Check it out and be sure to hit the Like and Google+ buttons there to spread the word. There's also a Share button, so you can easily send a hint to friends or family who just don't know what to get for you. Share this post, too, if you can. We'll surely appreciate it.

Be sure also to hit the "Deck The Halls" menu at the top right to see all of the other holiday creations that we have available. There's everything from traditional ornaments and candle holders to greeting cards. Your support will make a real difference in our studio.

Thanks and Happy Holidays! Here's the link to The Space Collection

And helped us reach our goal, then go on to surpass it by 17% before the deadline brought pledges to a close. This exhibit would not have been possible without their generous support and we can't thank them enough. Our spirits were greatly lifted as the pledges began coming in, so it wasn't only funding that was needed. As a result, our first Kickstarter Project is now in the history books, as it were, and it was a great success—thanks in no small part to our wonderful backers who made this all possible. You can read all that goes into this exhibit and the schedule that we maintain throughout the conference in the Help A Starving Artist and Help Yourself companion article.

We thought you would like to take a look at our booth and, alongside, the digital 3D design model that we created in planning our exhibit. Just a small look into the attention to detail and care that we take in everything we do. It makes all the difference—and you are worth it.

From left to right in the real booth you can see the 1/3 scale model of the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Award Master Sculpture on a turntable atop the cabinet, our display case holding bottle stoppers, small dishes, a Red Velvet glass cupcake and atop the cabinet one of the Steampunk Rockets. On the counter next to the cabinet are some small awards, our cards and a tower to accept business cards from visitors to the booth. When they drop a card in, they receive a glass pendant necklace as a gift.

Along the back wall at left center, on its own turntable, is the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Individual Award sculpture that was presented on Wednesday to Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of JPL, the HD monitor running our Impact Movie, a Rising Earth sculpture, a 13" Fused Glass Galaxy Platter, an 11" Fused Glass Rose Nebula Platter, a 10" Blown Glass Jupiter, the Ascending Stars Lifetime Space Achievement Individual Award prototype, our illustration portfolio book and, on its own pedestal, the Planetary Society Cosmos Award spare; its twin Blown Glass Saturn sculpture now residing in Stephen Hawking's office at Cambridge.

On the table against the right wall are what's left of 200 A New Ocean prints that I signed and gave away as our tribute to the Space Shuttle program; soon to come to a close.

Here, we wish to recognize and thank our wonderful backers who believed in us and put their money where their minds are, in order to say in a demonstrative and helpful way that they support the arts and our efforts to continue creating beautiful things. Each individual supported us with pledge amounts from $1.00 to $1,000.00!

We extendA Heartfelt Thank You to each and every one!

We are in production now, creating the Rewards for each of them; according to the pledge level that they chose. It is happy work, indeed.

Our first Kickstarter Project has just launched. What's Kickstarter? It's a new and innovative way for individuals across the globe who are interested in what an artist does, or wants to do, to fund creative projects by pledging various levels of support according to what they each can afford. Doesn't have to be a lot. Each pledge level has rewards that the project's backers will receive when the project is fully funded.

Our project is a Glass Space Art Exhibit that we want to mount at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. We already have our booth space and the furniture but the expense of shipping large glass sculptures, and ourselves, is significant. Preparations for the trip consume a month preceding and, even though the conference itself lasts only four days, the trip spans more than a week—and it's a complex, work filled one. Come on along for the ride.

We arrive two days early in order to de-stack our huge 7.5' tall, 345 lb. glass sculpture, The General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award that lives at Space Foundation Headquarters, and transport it to the Broadmoor Hotel West Lobby, where it is on display during the conference for all to see. Before transport, we etch the award recipient's name onto the tall glass plates and then place them onto our specially designed transport cart, along with the cobalt blue engine bell base, and secure it in the back of a lift gate truck. It's a big truck and doesn't ride easy, so I ride in there with him, making sure that nothing goes wrong. My being there has saved him from disaster more than once . The two blast cloud bubble assemblies, with their embedded spaceflight artifacts, ride on foam pads in the car that we rent for the transport.

Next day, we begin setting up our booth. We have no Roadies; it's just the two of us. Everything has to be ready for the first opening of the exhibit hall that night. We usually don't quite make it but are in good enough shape, so as to be presentable to attendees when they begin streaming in after the conclusion of the opening ceremonies; which I don't think we've ever been able to attend. Once that is over, we trek back to our room and fall into bed.

Education is what it's all about. Tuesday is the first full day with the exhibit hall open, and it lasts into the night. We run our booth all day, handing out small giveaways while educating visitors about art, how we produce these wonderful things and why art is essential in their lives. We have learned that most people think of art as inessential; when it really is extremely important to our well being, our imagination and inspiration. We've even had people who work at the Big Space Corporations come up and tell us that "they don't use art". Visionaries throughout history have blazed the trail for those who will come after to go and do. Circa: 1970 I coined this, because I realized just how true it really is:

That has never been truer than it is today. They don't realize that a sketch on a napkin or an engineering drawing are forms of art—as, of course, are their promotional materials.

Wednesday is a mixed bag. We arise extra early to de-stack the big sculpture and transport it into the Rocky Mountain Ballroom, where the Lifetime Achievement Award Luncheon will take place that day. The sculpture is re-stacked on a raised platform adjacent to the stage. It is a tricky operation lifting the engine bell base from the cart up onto it and then carrying the vertical plates up there and gently lowering them securely into their socket and carefully retightening the clamps. Once fully assembled, we give him a final cleaning under the bright lights and then go to the exhibit hall for a few short hours before returning to our room to dress for the luncheon.

In addition to caring for the master sculpture, we also bring an individual sculpture that is presented to the recipient for them to keep. This year's award will be presented to Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory; a wonderful campus upon which I have enjoyed many working hours. The orb on this one is Mars, for obvious reasons. It is our honor to have made and present this award, as we have to so many great pioneers over these years. Following the luncheon and photo session, we de-stack, transport and re-stack in the lobby once more and return to our booth. Counting the first move in the morning, all told, this operation consumes about four hours.

While this is decidedly cool, and we obviously wouldn't miss it, the unfortunate thing for us is that this is the time that the student field trips come through the exhibit halls to visit selected booths on Career Day. We're never there and we know from talking with many young people who are able to slip away and come over when they see that we have returned, that we are their dead-on favorite. They're enthusiastic and wide-eyed at our presentation; asking all sorts of questions before they're busted and have to go. Wish we could spend more time with them.

Thursday is much the same as Tuesday, running the booth all day, except that the Space Technology Hall of Fame and Closing Ceremonies Dinner follows on the heels of exhibit hall closing. We rush to our room and change, attend the dinner and, when it's all over, drag ourselves back to our booth to strike it and pack it all for shipping back to the studio; usually doing this in our dress clothes. In this short period of time, the entire exhibit hall, except for our booth, has been dismantled, crated and is being loaded into trucks. Nearly nothing is left but debris. It's amazing. Took them two to three days to set it up; two hours to pack it up. Really wish we could have some help in this area, but we need a different kind of help even more.

Friday we de-stack the master sculpture, load him onto his cart and transport him back to headquarters, where he stands until next year. It is always an emotional time when we leave. It took almost a year to design and build him. He's one of our kids and we hate to say goodbye.

Here is where you can help us
  and receive some great art
    and a warm, fuzzy feeling, too!

This is important to us and important to you, on so many levels. With the banks having tanked the economy, and the incorrect perception that art is not essential to the human existence, our ability to mount these exhibits is in jeopardy, as is our studio. IF we can get to the conference and cover our hotel room, we will be able to secure some much needed commissions and keep the spirit of art alive.

If enough of you pledge small amounts, it adds up. We get funded. You get Art. The catch is, if we do not reach our Kickstarter Project goal within the allotted time, we do not get anything. It is an all-or-nothing scenario and, as of this writing, we only have 17 days left to get this wrapped up. You can check the thermometer bar in the Kickstarter widget here on this blog and on Joy's to see how we're progressing. The whole process is monitored by Kickstarter and Amazon.

This isn't just a handout! You can help yourself to some wonderful art that you can keep or give as gifts. Everybody wins. Please do take a few moments to check out the levels and rewards that we have. They're pretty cool and made especially for you. You'll help a newly starving artist to stay in the business of creating; while inspiring minds to reach for the stars.

Life would surely be barren and drab
  if we had no beautiful things.

It had to happen sooner or later and I'm now surprised that it hadn't already happened. In an effort to make our imagery and our glass work as accessible to as many fans as we can, Joy has developed a new glass jewelry line called ImaGems; the combining of Image and Gems. They are miniature images of ours viewed through a fused crystal lens that hangs on a silver chain and bail as a pendant necklace. They're sure to catch attention.

I'd link to Joy's blog post but she's out in the Hot Shop straightening things up, so we can blow glass tomorrow.... and the next day. 'Been too long away from the Gaffer's Bench for me. It'll probably take a blowing day to get my "glass blowing mojo" back and not Bork things up.

I don't know about Joy, but it's really interesting for me to see my images in this whole new way. Tiny vignettes, tightly cropped, that offer only a glimpse of the scene that I know so well. Makes me want to peer around the corner to see what else is in there. Here's a few of our popular images behind Gems, so you can see what I mean:

They have proven to be instantly popular, so much so that I had to stop what I was working on yesterday and get the Art Glass Jewelry website updated with an entire new section, so that people could order them! They saw them, went to the website and.... nothing! D'oh! They're also available now on our ArtFire Shop.

They're so COOL. Each little Gem is a mere $16 and comes in a cool little gift box that Joy makes individually for each one. Only nine images so far but more in the works, to be sure.

Check 'em out. Get one for yourself or your squeeze. If you have a favorite image of either Joy's or mine that isn't available yet, or one of your own, let us know what you'd like and we'll make your wish come true!

Post a response below and let us know what you think about them.

After six months of getting pummeled by failures in trying to cast glass sinks to fit an existing counter top that was forbidden by the client to be modified—even by a little, my partner in art got a nice reward. Along the path of these varied projects that we do, comes knowledge that you don't know how it will be used. One day, though, it all comes together in glorious fashion.

A couple of years ago, I suggested that she try sand painting techniques that the Native Americans use in order to put designs in glass colors onto various items that she was creating; either with powders or small frit. Over the months, her technique has developed to a point where the results are stunning. Check it out!

It's 13" in diameter and 1.5" deep. The base layer is iridescent glass that gives it a spectacular quality that you just have to experience first hand to appreciate.

The platter goes along with a little fiery salsa/guacamole bowl that she created a few days earlier. It's really cute. She left the bottom hemispherical, so it rolls around a little when you scoop out of it. Fun.

While the platter was in the kiln for a couple of days, she worked at the torch creating glass butterflies—which became a wonderful pendant necklace. We'll start a line of these in the Jewelry Section of Glass Sculpture . org.

Each one of those sink casting attempts took 6-10 days. After six months of that, one can get the idea how discouraged an artist can get. At times, Joy was on the brink of quitting being an artist altogether, and you can understand why. To her credit, she didn't take that way out. The impossible task that caused so much stress was washed away by the success of these new creations and a new vigor has taken over. Never give up. Never surrender. I'm proud of her.

Drive on over to her blog post and let her know that she did good. It'll really mean a lot. Thanks!

The Deep Sea Anemone Table

It's Great! There are few who could be more critical and discerning. Their observations mean a lot because, in one way or another, they've been there.

Just had the sincere pleasure of reading a colleague's blog post over at Under Nevada Skies, the blog of artist Julie Rodriguez Jones. The post is about our most recent and our very next large blown glass commissions and how she has watched us online over the months making the former—a glass table base that weighs 200+ lbs. composed of 560 separate orbs and spirals of colored blown glass supporting a 6 foot 10 inch diameter 3/4" thick glass top weighing 370 lbs. OOF!

I'll limit this posting to that much, as I'm working on a series of posts about how we did it that will start in a few days. Here's a couple of frames of the 3D engineering design model we built and rendered prior to construction to whet your appetite.

You can see a shot of the finished Deep Sea Anemone Table now on Julie's blog, along with a still frame of the next big project. You'll love it. While you're there, leave a comment on her article. Please come back and let us know what you think.

Or is it the other way around? Every so often, I receive queries in my mailbox asking about various topics. Today, I was asked a question about the path that I took and how it affected my life's work:

"I am a freshman at Brigham Young University Idaho, and I've wanted to be an artist all my life. However I've never had any problems with math or science and love problem solving. My brother informed me that I might look into engineering rather than art. I really do like the idea however here is the problem, I LOVE ART, and I don't know what field of engineering I could go into that would involve both. How did you get started? Was it as an artist or an engineer? I really need some advice. Please help."

Often an interesting conundrum. Interesting enough that I decided to answer as a blog post, so that many folks might benefit.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I "started out" in engineering, but I originally wanted to do art. A counselor said that I couldn't make a good living doing art and suggested that I find another vocation to pursue. I looked around and opted to take a course in Mechanical Drawing (drafting) and Descriptive Geometry, part of the engineering curriculum, as it would still allow working in imagery but in a mainstream (read: "accepted") field.

I knew I could hold an object in my head, flipping it around to see it from any angle. I knew I understood mechanics and physics. Combining those two, I can see a machine working from the inside; "feel" the forces on each component as it runs. Being able to translate those to visual communication may be valuable, so I went for that. I found it fun and won a couple of bets on whether I had drawn a particular auxiliary view of an object correctly. If they were being stubborn, to prove it, I made a model. Pay up.

Back then, new cars were a Big Deal. The designs changed significantly from year to year, such that the first transporters delivering new models to the showrooms had the cars covered to keep them from view before announcement day. This excited me no end. I had visions of going to General Motors Institute and working in the Design Center on futuristic cars.

Life takes you in other directions, however. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing—I've been fortunate to have done some Really Cool Stuff, go some Really Cool Places and meet & work with some Really Cool People; all because of what I can do and who I am.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the office...

While working in the engineering field years later, art came back; slowly at first. I had never really gotten the chance to do anything with it before I was diverted, so was pretty bad. Maybe that was the reason my counselor suggested I do something else, I don't know, but I soon realized that art hadn't gone away; it had only been dormant. Some things are not to be denied—especially how you happen to be wired. Rather than eschewing one for the other, as I was counseled to do earlier, I combined them further still.

I'm very logical; some would say to a fault. How can a "logical" person be an artist? Convention says that it's not probable. Maybe so—but possible it is. I approached art from a scientific perspective, not to make a pun. Got all kinds of media and materials, tested them all and noted my findings as to that which worked, that which worked in unexpected ways and that which failed miserably and, sometimes, spectacularly. Not your normal vision of how an artist works, is it?

Some of the best engineers I know are artists in the way that they approach their craft; whether they realize it or not. They think about their machine in a fluid or abstract way, while weighing possibilities of design direction.

Some of the best artists I know are very technical in their craft; even ones whose work appears to be serendipitous, loose and free-wheeling. Realism artists pay great attention to detail. If you don't do that as an engineer, you don't design good machines. If you don't do that as a realist, well, it doesn't look very real.

Architects are essentially artists in engineer bodies or vice versa. No one knows which—and does it matter? Mom shared with me later in life that she envisioned my becoming an architect one day. Guess I have.

I don't do drafting in the strictest sense anymore. I do have two 6 foot drafting boards with drafting machines and sometimes go that route to flesh something out quickly. If it is found to have merit, then more detailed and complete drawings are in order. That's when a mode change is called for, because of the further benefits available. 3D and CAD programs are used now to great advantage. Having the traditional "pencil and slide rule" training as a basis, and being comfortable with digital technology, I quickly embraced the 3D world—once it became affordable that is.

Louis Henry Sullivan and his then assistant, Frank Lloyd Wright, coined and furthered the concept of "Form Follows Function":

"It is the pervading law of all things organic, and inorganic,
of all things physical and metaphysical,
of all things human and all things super-human,
of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law."

To a large extent, this is still true; but in this age not always the case; at least as far as the design process is concerned. Sometimes the roles are reversed or, at the very least, intermixed and intertwined to some great degree.

All of our large artworks, and some smaller ones, are fully modeled prior to beginning work on them. We design for the aesthetic values first, while making sure that it will be successful in the physical world. No point in designing something that can't be built or, if built, not stand up as intended. By the same token, building something that works as it should and stands up, but isn't pleasing to the eye, isn't good either. Just like the stylists in the Design Center, we have full-scale models to be able to see into the future and make refinements to the design; both for how it will look and for how it will function. It makes for a better product.

Essentially, it's already built. We're "copying" it from the virtual into the physical; in much the same way that a painting is "copied" from out of our minds onto the canvas for others to see. While we are tackling a particular section, we can consult the 3D model for reference and to see just how large or how shaped a part must be in order to fit properly.

If need be, each part of the whole can be individually extracted and traditional orthographic projections generated if an outside contractor will be employed to make it. In that sense, I am still doing drafting but not in the traditional way or order.

Additionally, if we choose we can now animate our design "drawings" either to see them work or to see them from many points of view. Couldn't do that before.

Along the path, I learned that I was wired as an Artist and as an Engineer. If that counselor hadn't set me on a course other than the one I was on, would I have done the things that I have?

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

...Robert Frost - 1915

Usually, about half way through, I can no longer read the page; but continue from memory. The poem as it relates to me is not about choosing art over engineering or vice versa. Taking the road less traveled by is about choosing both; which most people do not do, because they think it can't be done. Well, this and a lot of other brains attest to the fact that it can—and quite effectively.

There are plenty of areas in which to employ multi-disciplinary minds—in fact, it's essential to possess one in order to work in them. You'll discover them once you have chosen the road. Think about it. Disneyland wouldn't exist if it weren't for Imagineers, and people like us, to make things thought to be impossible come true.

Be a Renaissance Person. Some people will not understand and hate you for it, some people will recognize and identify immediately and love you for it; but the real choice is that you will love you for it and look back upon this fork in the road with warm fondness.

What's your take? Do you think in ways that others don't? Have you considered breaking out into something totally different; "going against the grain"? Let me know.

Next, we'll move into the process of creating the blown glass planets and Sun. The planets are supported by curved, hollow carbon fiber arms; the longest being 3 feet (1m), so the orbs must be very light. Just as in the Celestial Winds Blown Glass and Carbon Fiber Mobiles that we make, that have arms as long as 20 feet (6m), saving every ounce of mass that is way out on the end is very important. You're probably asking why we choose to pay that mass penalty when plastic could be used instead. Answer is simple:

“There's nothing quite like glass.”™

In fact, it's our tag line on GlassSculpture.org.

Now, you might think that making planets out of glass is a relatively simple task. Deceptively difficult is what it is. The glass blowing process requires a lot of planning and strict adherence to a sequence of steps that have been refined over time in order to arrive at a successful result.

Here are the required parameters:

• Must look like the planet it represents.
  (otherwise, what's the point?)
• Must be the correct relative size.
  (exact scale is NOT possible, so relative scale is used)
• Must be extremely low in mass.
  (wall thickness must be very thin)

Taken one at a time—not so very hard. Doing all of these at the same time is where the difficulty comes in.

I usually work the "Gaffer's" position; the person directly working the glass: heating, shaping, coloring and directing the overall operation in creating each piece. Joy Alyssa Day is my assistant. She consults the journal (more on that later), chooses and prepares the colors, operates the furnace and annealer lids, waxes the tools and switches various ones out when needed, provides the lung power to blow the glass at the Gaffer's direction and generally makes sure I don't miss a step along the way (more on that later, too). When she's not doing that, she tweets from our two Twitter accounts: @BJ_Johnson and @Joy_Alyssa_Day, keeping our followers up to date on our progress that day and makes sure that whichever cat decides to be our shop cat for the day stays out of the way of Dad when he's headed for the Gaffer's bench swinging a pipeful of hot glass. Let's get started!

We begin with a small gather; approximately 1" (25.4mm) of 2,200°F (1,204°C) molten crystal on the end of a blowpipe. Then colored glass in various gauged sizes is applied to the surface and melted in to make the base color of the planet. This glass is called "frit". It ranges in 5 steps from .25" (6.4mm) chunks down to fine powder and we can never have enough color and size selection. Gets to be very expensive.

Sometimes, as in the case of Mars, larger frit of slightly different colors is applied along with the base color powder to create variegations in the surface value and texture. Then, different types of white glass are applied to form cloud patterns and polar caps. Some may be applied directly to the base color surface and some may be applied to what is called an "over-gather" of clear crystal. When applying the color the glass is pretty gooey, so it becomes misshapen and must be reshaped; usually on the marver—the large stainless plate seen above.

After each application of color, the glass has cooled so it is reheated in what is called a "Glory Hole" an auxiliary furnace for reheating glass that has cooled during offhand blowing. Managing heat is the greatest challenge in glass blowing. Get your heat right and everything goes they way you want. Get it wrong and you're in for a bad time. Heating one portion, while allowing another to cool by only a few tens of degrees can bring dramatic results. Knowing where in the furnace the hottest spots are and where those spots drop off is invaluable in making this happen to your advantage.

Once the decoration phase is complete, the blowing out of the sphere is done. The decoration must be applied to the small "plug" in such a way that it all will migrate and end up where it is supposed to when the sphere has finished expanding; some four times its original diameter—or in some cases more. That is where the trial and error comes in. Lots of trial. Lots of error; with some successes thrown in to keep you interested.

Most glass blowing is done on structures that have wall thicknesses substantial enough to allow shaping with tools. A wall as thin as .125" (3mm) can be shaped with blocks (spoon-shaped green cherry wood kept wet), jacks (stainless steel knife/scissor-looking tools) or wet newspaper held in one's hand—to name just a few. You can see some of them next to me on our gaffer's bench. These planet walls are so thin that touching them with anything will distort their shape or collapse them altogether; they must be free-blown as a final step. What makes the blowing out extra difficult is that there are differing thicknesses of different types of glass (all glasses are not the same because they are composed of varying elements to produce the colors). Different glass compounds heated to the same temperature will expand at different rates. They also accept heat differently. As you might imagine, since we cannot touch the expanding sphere to guide it into a spherical shape, this results in a substantial amount of eggs. Still, we have developed a method of producing a uniform sphere of "lumpy glass" without touching it. Took a LOT of practice.

We usually blow approximately ten candidates for each planet, choosing the overall best of each production to put into the sculpture. Some have great clouds but aren't spherical or, in the case of Saturn, the correct amount of oblateness but there is usually one that it all comes together and sings!

Blowing glass requires serious concentration. Talk about a demanding medium, glass is about as unforgiving as you can get. Dangerous, time consuming, requires a lot of practice, expensive to do—the materials, equipment and the energy costs are substantial—and it requires levels of planning and expertise that are just not encountered when doing work in two dimensions and certainly not when working with any digital program that has "Undo" and "Save As". Those of you who have followed me for a while know that I also work in both of those media, and more, so I'm not looking down my nose at them, by any means, but it's at least a magnitude more difficult; maybe two. Lose concentration, miss a step or get them out of order and you don't get to where you wanted to go. The process is so complex and exacting that a journal is kept of steps, formulae and general notes about how a particular work was done. It is modified as time goes by to add refinements if we discover some. Next time we need to make an Earth, for example, we have the previous sessions right there to refer to as if it were yesterday. Heck, we couldn't remember all of the steps and formulae if it were yesterday!

One may wonder why an artist chooses such a medium, but it is because of this degree of difficulty, and doing something that's never been done, that makes the work so exciting and satisfying. Disastrous when things go wrong, glorious when they go as planned, delightful when serendipity steps in (and it's good, that is). As we often say:

“If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”

Once each is blown out to the target diameter, they go into the annealer for 8 or so hours to slowly cool from 950°F (510°C) down to ambient temperature. If this step is not taken or is not performed correctly, the glass builds up internal stress and shatters—if not immediately, soon. So, it isn't until morning that we know if we have successes that survived the cooling process. Some of our best don't and we're back in the hotshop the next day to duplicate it.... or try to. Putting glass in the annealer is sometimes fatal. Again, it's all about managing your heat. If the work goes into the annealer too cold and cracks during the "crack-off" process or it goes in too hot and suffers surface damage, you're starting over.

In the morning we look over the day's work, dust off the chalk, critique it, learn from new things we've tried and write the successes into the journal. When the selection has been made, the process known as "cold-working" begins. Using water-cooled saws, sanders and grinders, the extra bits and rough edges are taken off, smoothed and polished. Another opportunity for failure; sometimes spectacularly!

That'll be our topic for next time.

Got a question about our process or glassblowing in general? A horror story from your own shop to share, perhaps? Post a comment and let us know.

A colleague in England posted today that he had a harrowing experience varnishing a painting when the varnish began dissolving some of the paints and started spreading them across the rest of his painting.

I've always dreaded the varnishing operation. You painstakingly coax every individual millimeter of a work to get them all to sing together in concert and it's finally finished. Then, you risk the whole darn thing on one swell foop by having to apply a substance that ubiquitously affects the entire thing all at once.

Two similar disasters come immediately to mind.

The Third Airborne Tank Division

Years later, I was preparing for a show and this painting was to be framed. Well, may as well varnish it to protect the surface, which was airbrushed and the delicate surface is vulnerable to abrasion and contaminants if I did not perform this step. I applied a wet coat with a large airbrush. Just like Richard, to my horror the marker dots "bloomed" into the varnish, creating nice big blue, green or black splotches on a pristine tank side or the smooth horizon fade that I slaved over. AAAaaaacccckkkK!!! What NOW? This particular piece had been fraught with saving it from disasters all through its creation, so it was somehow perversely fitting that, years after it had been completed, the trend continues. Another disaster just patiently waiting for me to bumble on by. I tried various things to mop it up before it got worse or became permanent but none worked.

Just resigned that it was ruined and set it aside. On some other projects, I had been successful in working a scalpel under a loupe to scrape away minor imperfections that either were on the painting itself or in/on the varnish. Maybe just letting it dry and trying that might work. Nope, the varnish layer would not feather, producing a crater instead. Hmmm... This stuff isn't fully cured or adhered to the surface. Well, the painting is ruined in its present state; nothing to lose. I began rubbing the crater edges with my fingers and the crater edge began to roll up. Got a rubber cement pickup and began forcibly scrubbing like a mad man. The entire varnish layer rolled off the painting much in the same manner as eraser bits; leaving the original painting with only a few touch-ups to bring it back to its previously finished state. It remains unvarnished to this day.

The other horrific disaster was our 26ft x 4ft (8m x 1.2m) canvas Origin of Meteorites mural that took most of a year to complete.

The Origin of Meteorites Mural at Chabot Space and Science Center

A friend had a restaurant that was closed for a while and let us use the dining room. There was just enough surface area available by Borging all of the tables together in the right combination to lay the whole thing out for varnishing. This was the first time we had seen the entire composition, as it was painted on a scroll table we designed and built to be able to work on a 26ft painting in a 10ft room. After marveling at the sight and taking photographs, we gulped and began applying the varnish with brushes. Everything seemed to be going well and we worked steadily but feverishly from one end to the other, keeping the advancing front from drying so that there would be no lines introduced by the varnish having dried and another coat go on top of it. Once done, we left for the night. Three more coats would be needed before it was ready for mounting. Returning next day, the previously beautiful rich blacks on the right end of the painting, where the city lights on Earth are, was gray. What the...? Checking with a loupe, there were minuscule air bubbles frozen in the varnish layer refracting and reflecting rays. Great. Now what? The varnish had cured, so the rubbing technique wouldn't work. With the severe loss of Dmax, the only thing left to do was repaint the entire Earth, mapped city lights and all, and part of the sky out past the Moon, too. Fully 1/4 of that painting had to be re-done.

We figure that the varnish had partially dried in the jar such that it wasn't noticeable but the viscosity was higher. When it was applied, bubbles that are normally created by the brush passing over the bumpy canvas did not have a chance to rise to the surface and break but were trapped instead. By the time we got 1/4 way across the mural, the dried portion in the jar had been used up and the rest went along okay.

Had a harrowing experience of your own? Please share by leaving a comment.