MEETING REPORT
Kay Meeting with David New-Small
TE ie Tet GoPLeiy Shieh oP the civilisations of the near far east

first made glass, <A green glass rod found at Eshnurina in Baby-
lonia may go back possibly to 2600 B.C. The most important
innovation in the history of glass manufacture was blowing, which
may be credited to Syrian glassworkers, since the first mold-blown
glass bear the signatures of Syrian masters. Syrian glassworters
seemed to have travelled wherever demand promised a ready market.
“Have pipe will travel". Some masters moved to Italy early in the
Ist Century.

David New-Small's demonstration of glass blowing was an incredibly
interesting evening. He told us techniques had not changed in nearly
two thousand years. The one innovation was a plastic or rubber

pine attached to the metal tube which allowed him to blow and shape
the liquid glass simultaneously by himself.

Slase is a magic medium. I*% is normally transparent, hard and
brittle. It is commonly formed by silica (SiQs) in combination

with lime (calcium oxide - Ca0) and soda (sodium oxide WNasO) in
varying proportions, It has the property of cooling below its
freezing point without crystallizing, so becoming a liquid of in-
creasingly high viscosity until eventually it is so stiff that by
ordinary definitions the liquid has the properties of a solid, Glass
is a liquid!

David uses two electric furnaces, one to keep the glass molten and
the other to anneal it. The technique was reminiscent of raku ---
as he had to keep returning it to the fire - blowing, rolling into
the annealing furnace, blow and revolve again. He used a trans-
parent glob of glass, took his thumb off the end of the tube --

the rush of air created a small ballooning of the glass, He sand-
wiched a small section of a coloured rod between two layers of clear
@lass., During the process of blowing, the coloured glass mixed
with the transparent, forming a unified coloured translucent vessel,
He then pressed it into a mold which fluted the surface. After all
his hard work the base cracked, Without any show of emotion he
threw it into the garbage to the horror of seventeen onlookers --
all of whom coveted the beautiful piece,

David has a school near Seattle. Should anyone be interested in
learning the art, they should contact him,

liagele Judge

LIBRARY J

It 1s important that all library materials be returned in June
for our annual stock taking and repair, so please remember to
bring your boots and magazines to this last meeting before the
Summer break,

Two important craft exhibition catalogues have been added to the
library: (1) In Praise of Hands (1974), contemporary crafts of
the world. This is a replacement of our copy lost a few years ago.
(2) Works of Craft, from the Massey Foundation Collection (1984),
in which B.C. potters are well represented, Both were found in

a Vancouver used books store. 10