The End

Today is bitter sweet. I know I have made friendships here that will last, and learned things that will help me along in my work. I am excited to come home and see everyone and especially Matt, but that also means I have to leave here. I can't believe its already over. This has been one of the Top ten experiences of my life I can easily say that. I hope that next year someone new is given this opportunity again. I'm not sure what I need to do to make that happen for someone, but gosh darn if I'm not going to do it. To all of those who sent me here: You have blessed me more than I could have imagined before I left. To be a Pilchuck alumni means alot, and I hope to bring the quality of life from here home. Thank you all so much. Please feel free to e-mail me. I am going off the grid for a few days when I get home for a vacation with my husband, but I would love to hear from everyone. Thank you again, and here ends my blog from my first session at Pilchuck.

Shellie Hoak

Wednesday

Now its starting to feel weird. I can't believe this session is coming to an end, if it weren't for my husband I would never want to come home. Hopefully I will find my way back here one day. Tomorrow we clean up the shop and ship our works home. I look forward to showing my pieces back home. The installations went well, and I plan on putting up lots of pictures the minute I sink my toes back in Florida sand. This has been an amazing journey.

Tuesday

Today is coming to and end, as well as the session. Our pieces came out of the kiln but wont be ready till tomorrow to get out of their molds. Hopefully we will have time to cold work them to get them finished up. I set up a few pieces today for the critique tomorrow, and tonight have a tea party with a few friends. Its almost two late but who knows when I will see these guys again.

Monday

Sorry everyone I forgot to title the last post, it was for sat and sun. I wish I had more to report but yesterday was just cold working and drawing. There was a nice event that went on in the Lodge last night though. Our visiting artist Paul Rucker played sculptures. We were given an amount of clay and were allowed to play with it and make anything we so desired. Once we were done he played our sculptures on his chello. The rest of my pieces come out of the kiln today and hopefull will be cold worked soon! and ready to go. Here is a picture of the flat shop, This is where we do all our drawing, planning, meetings and such.

part of my site specific installation

Good Morning, or afternoon I guess depending on where you are. Today is update day. We are now in the home stretch before returning to the warm waters of Florida. It was a pretty miserable weekend as far as weather goes but I guess I got a real taste of what Washington is known for. The weekends are slower days, and much needed slower days. All of my pieces have been cast, some are coming out today and some are coming out tomorrow. Now it is just going to be a race against the clock to get them all cold worked before I come back into town.... or Wink Wink if I don't Ringling will get some waterproof tools Wink* So far life is still great. I still rarely see Mark past dinner time, and we are all convinced that were going to starve when we get home because no one will ring a bell to let us know we need to eat haha. But back to Mark, He has been doing mostly kiln forming (fusing strips of glass together to create interesting imagery), but he also had some of his molds sent to him and has been working with I believe slumping faces. I'm really interested to see what comes out of that experiment. My casting experiment comes out of the annealer this morning. I made a relief mold out of plaster instead of sand and kept it to a small 2" thickness at most. I think bubbles are going to be a problem but who knows maybe they settled in the annealer. Today is going to be a good day. Most of it will be spent cold working but I also have a drawing that I will be taking breaks to work on. Homes for the invisible people... that is a much longer story that you would have to ask me in person ha. I'm not great at taking pictures but I'm going to steal some off facebook from friends here to pass on great memories to yall. Pictures of my work so far will be coming soon, but I have to say I have never worked with glass so you will have to cut me some slack (wink). Until tomorrow, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well.

Thursday/ Friday

Hello again,
I feel like my blogging is getting farther and farther apart... but I say we take this as a good thing, pilchuck is keeping me busy. I have a few more pictures up courtesy of my friend Cydney. Its a good jumping off point to talk about the car kiln. The picture of my class huddled around the table is our game plan. The car kiln needs to be poured fast and quickly pushed back into place. This was our chance to make some thicker pieces because of annealing time. The woman in charge is my teacher Brynhildir. The next picture of the whole crew is my entire class getting ready to put all our rehearsals into motion. There was four people ladling at the same time, almost like a glass dance. a few of us were ladle planners, and just needed to make sure we handed the right ladle to our guy when he needed it. Others cut glass, and opened the furnace and kiln doors. The picture of the glowing molds is one of our TA's Alex pouring the final mold before it is pushed back into the kiln. The last picture was just a wonderful dose of puppy haha. A couple showed up to campus with I would say 5 or 6 puppies so all of us missing our pets could have some unconditional love. This is an amazing place, and I cant imagine there being anything like it anywhere else. Everyone is motivated, works hard, is trusting... its a little slice of heaven in the woods. I have one more weeks here. At this point all of my pieces have been poured. I am just waiting for them to come out of the annealer to start cold working them. This is such an amazing experience. You meet people from all over. I now have friends from Canada, France, Iceland, Israel, japan, and many states. I have nothing negative to say about this place, and I'm currently very proud to be part of the pilchuck family. Thanks guys.

Wednesday

I love looking out the window at the bay while I write these in the morning. Wednesday was a good day. A little slower for me I finished another mold in the morning and was done around two so I took the day to myself. I hiked around in the woods, slid down a hill into a creek beyond my will haha but it was a good time, and decided to jump into the 50 degree lake for a swim. I'm not sure what was more fun the swimming or the pushing a friend in first. There was a colaboration last night in the hot shop between a visiting artist Paul Rucker and the staff/gaffers. Anyone who could play an instrument came out and made music for the glass workers to work to and see what came out of that inspiration. It was beautiful to see them work so far on a piece of glass than pass it off to someone who could change it at their whim. Today is going to be a long day of casting. My friend Josh and I have a colaboration that needs to be done today to come out of the annealer in time. Sounds like a good long day in the hot shop. More on that later! Mark is also having a wonderful time. Everytime I run into him he is enjoying his experiments. Also he just recieved some of his molds in the mail so I'm interested to see what he is going to do with those. Its great to know with all the knowledge we are collecting together we are concockting plans for when we get back.

Mon/Tues

Goodmorning!
This has been a great week so far and its only wednesday morning. First thing tuesday we started off with a mold blowing demo. Nothing like working in the hot shop trying to make glasses and bowls, but so versitile. Monday is our last day to work in hot glass so now we are cooking to get everything done. We do get a treat while we are here and are going to cast into what is called the car kiln. This is going to give us the ability to make thicker pieces because of the amount of time they need to aneal. Also during this time period we had a demo with brynhildir. She is one of my teachers and a well known icelandic artist, who uses a large amount of concrete in her work. So that was what our demo was on, a good way to use concrete in your work without it being a total pain. I figure its about time to talk about the work I'm making here. It is truly hard to not be inspired in such a beautiful setting, and as a disclaimer I have to say not to let your imaginations go wild because my glass working skills are still limited, and my not been as great as the pictures you can draw in your head. So far I have two molds ready to go into the car kiln. One is of a tree stump with the shadow of a woman in it. This was a piece carved out of clay and made into a one piece mold. The second piece I have ready do go is casting of the knot from a tree I recovered during one of my hikes. I just loved the shape and how it had a spike anchoring it to a tree. Its not every day we think about branches being spiked into a tree. but I am casting it into a rather solid piece of glass tall and thin to stand and excentuate the shape of the branch further. For my site specific installation... This is a secret just in case my teachers get a hold of this blog. You will just have to wait in suspense. I am also working on a colaboration with one of my class mates josh. We found a small creek on campus and are working twards sand casting some branches we find, well alot of branches we find and creating a small glass damn. Today I'm heading back into the mold making studio to battle plaster some more, hopefully with less mishapes than yesterday. If you have any questions about the processes im using please let me know, feel free to e-mail and ask questions and I will answer them the best way I know how.

saturday/sunday

I apologize for being late on my post, but I was a lost cause yesterday. I could not pull myself away from watching the solid glass sculptors. They are absolutely amazing. All are very experienced, but have traveled this way to learn from Dino Rosin. He is from Italy and been working with glass for I believe 40 years now. It as always a treat when we can sneak in and see his demos. For my class yesterday we just went over technical skills in making plaster molds for a glass pour we are going to do sometime in the next week. We also had the AM to our selves and a friend of mine and I went for a hike through the tree farm. This place is magical the way the forest can change from 60 year old trees to fields of stumps from trees that were 200 years old. We got some great pictures of some extremely inspiring views. Today the studios are closed for the staff to work so many of us are going to head into Seattle and take in the sights and galleries. Mark may come after me for this but for those who know him he has not been wearing cowboy boots this trip. I'm still working on getting a picture for proof. I have really enjoyed getting the e-mails from everyone reading my blog. I appreciate all the encouraging words. Untill next time! Hope everyone has had a great weekend.

Friday

Today was a day of experiments. We are still sand casting glass only now we are pushing the limits. Today I learned that casting over wet wood can make a huge worm like bubble, and yes its in the annealing process so hopefully I will get a wicked picture for all of yall to see. I can't believe its only been three days of class! Things are moving incredibly fast. I see mark mostly during meals and have heard nothing but good things from his class experience as well. The most amazing thing I have seen since I have arrived is the telepathy between glass workers. There is no such thing as a glass piece made alone. Just to cast one of my pieces I have two other people helping me to cut and open furnace doors. Watching the classes blowing glass is even more amazing because they work in groups of up to 5 for really intense pieces. I have gained alot of respect and trust for my class mates here after only 4 days. But the best part is how silent everything is, all of the workers just seem to know where to go and how to help each other. I have finally started planning my environmental installation piece and look forward to posting picture of the final product.

Photo comments

I just wanted to give some information about the pictures. Sorry the first one is sideways that is the lodge where the library is and where we eat our meals. the second is one of the teachers here working on a solid glass sculpture, and the third is the hot shop from the top of the freakishly steep hill up to our dorms haha, and yes! that is a deer standing in the clearing. There is a mom and a baby and they will let you get like 10 feet from them, its rather epic.

Thursday the 29th

Hey yall,
I'm finally able to get some pictures off the camera and onto the web. Today was wonderful we spent most of the day in the casting shop playing with mold and seeing just what this new material can do. We had some time off after casting today so I did what comes naturally and headed to the nearest body of water to reboot. Tonight we are searching for inspiration in a full studio.

Good Morning! It feels great to finally be on pacific time over here. Last night we did our first pours. we learned proper scooping techniques for ladling hot glass from the furnace as well as how to set up a sand mold, and leave natural impressions in the glass. So far its a great experience. We also got a treat in the middle of the day my class went on a hay ride.... Well we put some matresses in the back of a flat bed. One of the maintinince men took us around the tree farm explaining the history, and showed us one of the best spots around, "inspiration point." It has one of the most beautiful views of the bay. It is very exciting to meet all of the people of this school its truly international. Sorry I have not posted pictures yet, They keep us running and I have not had enough time to upload them on the computer. This place is like a bee hive with the hot shop at the center. People work at the hot shop literally through the night and if you want a good show everyone just sits and watches the venitian glass class. More updates and hopefully pictures tomorrow.

2nd day

Hello everyone! Mark and I have arrived at pilchuck and are half way through the 2nd day. Our trip across the country was a long 22 hour day by the time the demos ended on the first night, but they were amazing! The scenery is fantastic who knew there were actually snow topped mountains hahaha. We are nessled in the middle of a 15,000 acre tree farm and the silence and beauty is nothing but inspiring.
Today we began our demos of the different studios around campus and our classes officially start today. My class has a casting demonstration today around 3:00 and I'm thuroughly looking forward to that. Everything about this place is amazing, can't want for what lies ahead.

The First Leg of the Journey

Hello everyone!

The trip to the Pilchuck School of Glass is merely one week away. Thanks to everyone who made this possible from the Southwest Florida Glass Art Alliance. My classes at Pilchuck start on July 27th 2010 and will run for three weeks. I am currently enrolled in the nature within sculpture class during session four with teachers James Harmon, and Brynhildur Thorgeirsdottir. In this class we will be studying our environment and drawing from it to create nature inspired works of art. This class will be studying the techniques of hot casting and mold blowing from technical planning all the way through to installation. I will be updating my blog as often as possible through this experience and welcome any to follow along. The Learning begins!