Norfolk (Part 4) VA USA

Saturday morning (2 November) brought another early start, this time for the Rugby World Cup Final: England vs South Africa.  After the England team’s performance against the Kiwis the previous week, we had high hopes of a good result but that was not to be the case – clearly they too had got out of bed too early.  However, the better team on the day won, which is only right and the joy on the winners’ faces was fabulous to see.

Rugby fix over, Greta took us out to Dollar Tree and Lidl to drown our sorrows in a shopping fix.  Dollar Tree first, to buy UHT milk, a commodity that is surprisingly hard to come by in the States – even if you know what to ask for.  Mostly Americans seem not to understand the terms ‘UHT milk’ or ‘long-life milk’.  Instead, it is variably called ‘shelf-stable milk’ or ‘boxed milk’ or sometimes just referred to as ‘Parmalat’ (a well-known brand name here, in much the same way that a ball-point pen is often referred to as a ‘Biro’ in the UK).  Unfortunately, with the rise in veganism and increasing awareness of lactose intolerance, most places that do sell ‘boxed milk’ actually sell almond milk or soya milk or something similar, not UHT dairy milk.  However, Dollar Tree can usually be relied upon to sell UHT milk and several, but not all, Walmarts we have visited sell a relatively small quantity of the Parmalat brand.

With the all-essential UHT milk purchased we headed on to Lidl for a fix of European style foodstuffs. Importantly, dried sausage and, because it’s nearly time to think about Christmas, Panettone; both of which are luxuries but then why not?  We filled the boot of Greta’s car with plenty of non-luxuries too and returned to try to fit it all into BV – not an easy task.

Glassblowing as I remember it from childhood trips to glassworks.  Here Peter demonstrates how large a bubble can be blown from a relatively small amount of molten glass

With BV sitting a little lower in the water we headed back ashore for one last ‘must do’ sightseeing trip.  This one highly recommended by Lionel and Elsie on Ruby Tuesday, who had just that morning left on their passage to Bermuda.  The ‘must do’ in this case being attending a glass blowing display at the Chrysler Museum’s glassworking studio adjacent to the museum itself.  We’ve seen glass blowing before.  Who hasn’t?  But we’ve seen nothing before like the display that we saw here.  Nicola (I can’t remember for sure that was her name), one of the studio’s permanent staff members led the demonstration, with Peter, one of the volunteers, assisting her.  Peter started off by blowing a glass bubble, with Nicola talking through the method, some of the equipment and also some other glass techniques (stained glass work, fused glass etc).  Then they got on to the technically tricky bit (as Nicola said, she never likes to do anything too simple on these demos): produce a decorative 3-layer glass bowl in under 40mins, all whilst giving a running commentary.

Top left: Peter’s red blob was drawn out into a rope and spiralled onto Nicola’s small white bubble.  Right: cutting the red rope.  Bottom left: shaping the bowl

We understood, of course, that glassblowing is a skilled art form but we’d not realised before how much teamwork goes into making such an item.  Nicola started by collecting a blob of molten glass (there is a proper name for this but I don’t remember it), shaping it, blowing it into a small bubble and colouring it white.  All of which was interspersed by additional heating, then shaping and a little more blowing.  Keeping the glass at the Goldilocks temperature is a real art.  Too hot and the blob/bubble will fall off the blow rod.  Too cool and it can’t be shaped.  Hold the rod stationary for too long and the blob becomes a run.  You get the picture.  Whilst Nicola was busy with her white bubble, Peter made a red blob.  More heating to get them both ‘just so’ and then, using a set of tongs that looked like they had come from a mediaeval torture chamber, Nicola drew out the red blob and laid a rope of red in a spiral over the white bubble.  More heating.  Then, using another instrument of torture, she dragged the red spiral into feathers, much as one would drag icing stripes on a cake or foamed milk on a latte.  And part way through, as the glasswork cooled, she thrust the part formed creation back into the working furnace to warm up and become malleable again.

Using the high-tech ‘damp newspaper-turn-and blow’ technique to inflate the glass into a regular bowl shape

With the decorative bit done, Nicola thrust the creation back into the molten glass in the furnace to cover it in a final layer of clear glass.  Then came a long period of teamwork, blowing the small bubble into something big enough to be a decent sized bowl, all the while turning and shaping the bubble using, firstly, damp newspaper and then something that looked like an oversized wooden salad server.

Working with furnaces at 1000degC and molten glass just a fraction cooler and the only safety equipment in use are safety specs!  Top right: forming the bubble into a bowl shape.  Bottom right:  the bowl, nearly complete.  Now no longer a blown blob but a squidgy dish on a stick

With the bubble an appropriate size, Peter got a small blob of molten glass on a rod and stuck it to the bottom of the bubble.  Nicola scored around the top of the bubble and they ended up with a squidgy dish on a stick rather than a bubble on a blow rod.  Then there was further warming and shaping (more teamwork) until the bowl was an acceptable, final shape and they could make the critical move of releasing the bowl from its stick and putting in the kiln.  Yes, they put it in a kiln.  If glass is very thin (like the bubble that Peter blew at the beginning of the demo) then the whole thickness cools quickly and evenly at room temperature.  However, if the glass has any reasonable thickness (like the bowl), at room temperature the outer layers of the glass cool much faster than the inner layers, which stresses the object and it is likely to crack and shatter.  Glass artists reduce the risk of this happening by putting their finished objects in a very hot kiln and then gradually reducing the temperature of the kiln so that the object cools evenly across its thickness.  A piece like the bowl will take several days to cool without risking cracking.  Really thick pieces can take months.

Glass artwork on display.  The hamburger, all of which is made in glass, was made by a famous glass artist when he visited the Chrysler Glass Studio.  Making the individual pieces took several days and required a whole team of glassworkers when it came to keeping everything hot enough to fuse together.  The cooling period in the kiln was of the order of a month, perhaps longer

It was a fabulous display and it’s only a shame that we couldn’t see the final end result properly.  The amount of hard work and the teamwork that went into making the bowl was impressive to watch and we will never look at an item of glass artwork again without thinking about the amount of effort it must have taken to make it.  In some ways we were only sorry that we weren’t staying in Norfolk longer as the studio runs short courses for members of the public and it would have been great to have tried our hand at making some really interesting shaped blobs, bubbles and runs!  But time and tide wait for no man and we had a weather window to catch to get around Cape Hatteras.  So we contented ourselves with looking at the glasswork on display in the studio, promised ourselves that we would return to the museum next year to view the glass on display there and high-tailed it back to BV to prep for sea.

Norfolk, Virginia, USA