Art and Science - Glassblowing

This week, I had the opportunity to visit a glassblowing studio. I discovered there was a lot of science involved in glassblowing, which seemed at first like a solidly artistic endeavor. Materials science in particular is important to understanding how glass will react in various circumstances, and knowing how materials respond to different conditions is vital to having control over the work being produced. For example, hot glass doesn't stick to cool steel, so in order to gather a blob of glass, you need to first heat a metal rod. Cold metal, however, works well as a surface for shaping glass. Fluid dynamics is also important. Molten glass turns out to have a honey-like consistency. It flows, but very slowly, and it droops in response to gravity if held still for too long. To prevent the glass from dripping onto the floor, the rod needs to be turned at all times.

A rather dramatic example of how science becomes relevant to glassblowing is the Prince Rupert's drop. Imagine taking a blob of glass and letting it drop into a bucket of water. The glass ends up forming an elongated teardrop shape with a very thin, twisted tail. These tails can be as thin as a human hair. Due tension created in the glass during rapid cooling, the bulb of the drop in incredibly strong. Smash it with a hammer, and it will not burst. However, breaking the thin tail causes the entire drop to burst, creating a fine white powder of glass particles.

I ended up making a heart-shaped paperweight. I still can't come up with a good metaphor for what it felt like to shape it that captures both the heat and malleability of molten glass.

We often tend to think of the craftsperson, painter, or sculptor as purely an artist. The skills for creating these media are acquired over years of experience. Over time, the artist tests different methods of creating a work in order to find out which techniques are the most effective. After a lifetime, this built up knowledge is vast, allowing an artist to deal with almost any situation they encounter. This body of knowledge, acquired empirically, is just like the body of knowledge most people imagine when they think of science. The artist is doing science when they discover a new method for working with their chosen material. By repeating the process over and over again, they can test the reliability of the effect and build a style. And when something goes wrong, the artist instinctively checks for what happened during the process, seeking out variables that changed the result of their experiment. An artist develops theories: cool glass quickly and it is fragile, like the Prince Rupert's drop, but cool it slowly and it is strong. Certain colors, when paired together or treated incorrectly change state and produce unexpected hues. The method used by artists to create and explore new techniques is science, and there is a lot we can learn from these artists' experiences.