The Veronese 'an attempt'

Welcome to Maker's Perspective. Here I'm going to be making a Veronese vase. The Veronese started life in 1578 in Paolo Veronese's painting, The Annunciation, which hangs in the gallery the Accademia in Venice. In 1920, Victor Zechting, then the artistic director for Paolo Venini's factory, Venini, had it actually made and now it has stood as a symbol of Venetian glass making. The vase that I make is based on that along with another designer's work, kind of a coalescing of the two. One unfortunate thing about this vase is that it doesn't make it, but it almost does, so we'll go through the process of how I came to certain conclusions about it. Again, I'm working at Acme Studio in Louisville, Kentucky with J.W. May. Currently, I'm just starting my bubble. My version of the Veronese is usually just two gathers, a bubble, and then a nice size dip on top of that. Just using the marver to start my starter bubble on a nice even bubble with a little bit of extra thickness just at the bottom. It's blown up up top. That helps with the shoulder and the neck later on in the process. Make sure my block and my paper are ready. As always, it's good to keep hydrated. Getting ready for my gather. For this gather, I really go in and I try to scoop the glass and turn a bit faster as I come down, scooping it out. Again, my diagram of the gathering. In my version, it's not traditional as it does not contain bits or a knob ball before the foot. I need all that glass so I can pull a stem out of the bottom of the piece. There I am winding it up. I have no idea what Paolo Veronese was thinking when he designed this vase in the painting, but to me, the piece has always kind of been as simplified as a balloon or an upside down egg. Just scooping that glass. Just trying to get a little bit more excess material, so scooping it away from the bubble so that I have quite a bit of material down towards the bottom. There you can kind of see a shot where my bubble's about halfway and then I got a pretty good amount of thickness. So for design inspiration and the ideas of shape, I always kind of played with those of the egg and the balloon. And what if you just put a little top or a bottom part and glued them on to either shape. Balloon on the left, the egg on the right. Now that I have all the glass I need, I just start pushing that glass towards the bottom. That way I can have that mass that will become the stem. And then that will lead to the foot. So just giving it a heat. And here's a production sheet from the Venini catalog with the Veronese being at the top to also show you the scale. And this is a diagram of kind of the basic start and setup that I use for my Veronese. At the marver, I need to really chill that bottom, but I'm also elongating the piece. So basically I'm taking that solid bit of clear and pulling it. Elongating the bubble, but also making sure that I keep that area nice and cool so that I can have it for my stem later on. Once I've set it up on the marver, I'll heat it and now go back towards the bench. I grab my tweezers and I just pinch a little bit of an end and pull. Straighten it out and you can see how the bubble is divided up into the solid part which will be the stem and then the top part which will end up being the neck and body of the base. I need to smooth that out so I have JW Blow and I am left with this cone-like shape with the widest part at the pipe and tapering from there to the end being the narrowest or where the foot will go. In order for me to get a good neck, I'll then take the torch and I'll spend extra time heating that area of the shoulder which will be the neck and then I'll also put the jack line in. One of the reasons I've come to my conclusion of my design is it's kind of a mashup of Oswald Herdal's candy dish that he designed for J. and L. Lobmeier of Austria back in 1925. These candy dishes are an inspiration along with a Veronese for my form or iteration. Just heating it and now back at the bench, smoothing it out and torturing it so I get the heat just right for the neck and jack line. This will be my heat before the jack line and here's kind of a drawing of the mashup of the candy dish and the Veronese and then the one of the Veronese that I've made. So the drawing and here's one of the Veronese that I made. Now when I'm heating in the glory hole, I hold it up a little bit and then I come out and then I hang it down. Then I'll take my jacks a little bit off the pipe and I start constricting while also pulling and I'm pulling on that shoulder and then one thing I do, if you can look and see my thumb, I lock my thumb into the opposite handle of the jacks. Therefore I can't squeeze down any further than I decided to. Kind of lock how much I can squeeze. Now I'm torching the top of the piece which will be there. I place the jack line. Of note, one thing when I'm heating, I'm almost always holding the piece up so that it doesn't pull out. Kind of going against gravity and allowing me to get it a bit hotter. So there you can see it looks fairly level but I'm probably pulling down or holding the piece up just a little bit. Here again is that diagram. So now I'm at that area of the number seven where I'm putting in the jack line represented by the green dashed line. Remember you don't want to put the jack line just straight up and down. It's good to have that little curvature so that it breaks off nicely and doesn't harm the top of your piece. So there you can see I'm kind of curving it out or angling it. You can also note my hands are over more the moil versus the piece that's expanding and going to be hotter. So I can kind of hide my hand from the heat. So refining that jack line then trying to start and make sure that I straighten everything. One of the things that I did a really poor job is keeping that whole piece straight. My defense again I hadn't blown glass in for a while so it was one of those things that a week or two later when I was in Tulsa made a really nice one. But of course it's not on video so did it really happen or not. You'll just have to trust me. So now heating it trying to straighten up and remember you need to straighten a thing from the pipe all the way to the end. So start from where the jack line is to where that hinge point of the neck is to the shoulder the piece all the way to the tip of the bottom. There I'm supporting the neck then taking towards the back and trying to kind of camshaft lift up the bottom and let the shoulder fall back on center. Here's a pic of one of Janusz Pozniak's Veronese's in his studio along with his squiggle sticks. He made a much more traditional one as does James Mongrain. But having spent years working for him and Mongrain I kind of came up with my own conclusion of one as I thought they also work their voice into their pieces. You can definitely see from here that there's a little bit of hula dancer there and not a good hula dancer. Again this was kind of a little frustrating. Here's a bunch of Veronese's that I made in San Francisco. I made one a week during my personal blow slide. It ended up being over a hundred during my time there. I never really cared to make them the same I just wanted to go and gather and kind of mess with the proportions. Whether I wanted to make a small one or a large one or a voluptuous one or a skinny one it was kind of always a warm-up and see what happens type of thing. At this point when I start blowing it up one of the ways to help the shoulder is I'll heat it up then I squat it. By doing that I'm able to get that nice full kind of shoulder at the top and then I can just have JW blow and the whole piece fills up. From there I can then yank it out at the end just a little bit and then repeat the process. There it is nice and squatted up. Now heat it up and I can drop it out or I can pull on the tail a little bit. This diagram you can kind of see that in one where I squat it up and then I can just pull on the tail. You can kind of repeat that process until you get it to where you want it. With all that thickness that really gives me the ability to pull it out so you can kind of see how much the shape changes from that squat shape. You can also see that the rest of the piece the shoulder stays nice but the rest of the piece kind of sucked in and has a weird silhouette. So now I can kind of cradle that bottom area and start to have JW blow and get that more kind of silhouette that's closer to that egg or balloon look. Here also watching the video back I can see it's one of those review things where I should have just taken time and really made sure that it was on center at the throat. So not the jack line. The jack line is good but at the throat of the piece and then work that into the shoulder and all the way into the tip. Instead I was a little forceful as I could be and it ended up being a kind of battle the whole time. This is also the second time I filmed it. I lost the first one. The struggle is real. Just that continued kind of shimmy trying to get it somewhat on center realistically even if the piece the body as long as I can get the neck and then the tail tip on center that's really the key. Of course if it's on a lazy soon or turning in your face while you're you see all those discrepancies which becomes irritating. Kind of like me re-watching this video. Just see that little bit of wiggle and here's two other varanaises that I made over the year. You definitely see one is kind of more filled out. Turning it I can see how funky it is. Pretty wonky. Just gonna have to suffer through this weevil wobble. Kind of another heat trying to shimmy trying to sort it. Neck doesn't look too bad it's mainly kind of the high point of the shoulder and the shoulders all. Now I definitely need to kind of narrow or not narrow but straighten out that tip or the bottom area where I'll put the foot. While heating it always making sure to flash it deeply and then just trying to feather in the heat to the area that I want to manipulate. There you can really see how far off the bottom has gotten. I'm just trying to wiggle it to get some type of semblance of straight. It's a bit of a struggle but all things considered the bottom and stem or top more or less on center. It's primarily just that shoulder area that's really off. Just a couple more heats to kind of blend it together as far as making it look better and making sure that the top and the tip are on center. Those two things more or less line up the top and the tip so now I'm just starting to heat bottom so therefore I can put a little landing pad in it for the foot. The oxypropane was turned off at lunch so I got to get that dialed back in. As not to overcook it too much I feather the heat. Still need to get it dialed in just a Now the flame looks good ready to get to it. So I can't just stay in one spot. If I stay in one spot I'm clearly going to burn out and make the glass boil. But I want to get it as close to molten as possible so I can squish it and make a nice landing pad for the foot. Just given that feathered heat JW is going to go back and flash it. In here in the diagram you can see what I'm doing where I'm going to squish that area that's kind of circled in orange and make that the landing pad. Remember you can always pause, look at, rewind, stop, whatever, diagram or any part of the process. So just one last heat, hook it up, grab the butt ends of my jacks and just squish and try to straighten it out as nice as possible. For almost any type of these bits I'll use the thin edge of the butt ends of the jacks due to it being a fine straight edge just to check it. So jack blades on the other side. It looks pretty good. Now I'll just torch the top. Really pains me to see it off center but at least at least that little nubbin where I'm going to drop the foot that's on. So bad job DH but that part will be good landing pad. JW will keep it flash. Now I'll go and make the foot. One thing that is imperative is to make sure that your blow pipe for the foot has a nice cherry red. You definitely want a hot end to gather this foot on. So I just get my scoop of glass and I'll go right to the pipe cooler. At the same time you'll see how much glass is off the end of the pipe so I've been starting to hang it down so that the material that's going to be the foot is off the pipe. Now because I was out for so long cooling the pipe I'm just going to heat it up a little bit. On the Marver I start on the moil and then I just kind of pull back and raise up and then I come off lightly on the moil again as not to give it a little flat tire. Hold it up shoot the bubble almost all the way to the bottom. Now I'll give it a heat. A little hang and then my buttons on the jacks on the bottom just to make sure there's a little meat on the bottom and give it a nice puff and essentially what I have is this kind of like light bulb shape. I'll come in squeeze and pull a neck with my jacks. It's like I'm making a necked vessel. Now that I have this round thing with a nice narrow neck once I got that almost to a teardrop shape evenly blown out I'll trade off with JW. I take the varianese make sure it's straight as possible and give it a little bit of heat right where the foot is going to land. JW is going to be heating up the whole thing. I have the piece on my foot you can see there and right at my sight level. JW swings it down I try to stick it on as centered as possible. Just a little touch at first then push it down. Then I come up pull off over to the side have JW blow and cut it fairly high up so I have a little tail. That tail here you can see in the diagram of how I do for the foot is imperative in order to straighten and then to put it in a jack line and break off that part and then open up the foot. With a deep flash and then just focusing in on that foot you can easily use the diamond shears or the jacks or tweezers for this next part. Back at the diagram you can see that little orange part in B and that little bit is where you're going to pull and then jack straight down and then squish it. So I've pulled it out just a little bit jacking straight down and then I'm kind of pushing back into the whole piece squatting up that bubble of the foot. Take my jacks then my tweezers and squish that part putting the air in then come on with my diamond shears and crimp around with them in a light tap. Now a lot of folks like to do that tap where they hold the piece at the constriction break off point of the foot with the diamonds and then have somebody else tap with the tweezers. I'm the only constant when I'm blowing glass. I blow glass with a bunch of other people so it's easier for me to bonk it off. This is a method I learned from Dante. Breaking it off I want to hit through the piece but not in a straight up and down fashion. Instead a slight arc. The arc is easily replicated by someone else hitting the piece with the tweezers. Think of your wrist as the fulcrum of the pendulum. A nice arc is made and you stop the vibration from the tap with your diamond shears. The method I use expresses a greater understanding and control. It's time to open up the foot so you see diagram D. I'll push in and then up and open my jack blades as I do it. So here I come I push in lift up and this will help me fold the foot and start widening it with my jack blades. Now another deep flash and I'll start opening the foot once back at the bench. Making sure to put a good heat on that foot and nice deep flashes before I come out and back at the bench. So here I'm just focusing in that heat on the foot. Another quick flash and again another deep flash and now back to the bench. I'll stick my blades all the way in the bottom and then I'll just almost over open it then come back on the outside area of the foot then push against JW's paddle. So you see that in the diagram. Now here I am going all the way to the end open past straighten it out and then I slowly open up my jack blades as I meet the foot and sandwich it in between the paddle and my jacks. That way I can get that nice swoop look on the foot. Once that part is done I'll just start torching it and getting it ready to punty. But that's basically how I would open a foot on any sort of cup or vase for that matter. Here's a quick look at that diagram again at how I open up a foot and this breaks it down so you can easily look at it. Here's a pile of varanaises that I made out in San Francisco again or I guess another pile. JW flashed it. I'm just going to take my paddle make sure the foot's nice and straight and JW is going to go make the punty. I like to make sure that I get moving right at the jack line so keep that neck a little bit warm and then just make sure that it's got a little sway right at that jack line and a nice long flash. Back at the bench just torching that neck keeping it moving and warm up there. This should be about my last flash. Now JW has rolled on the brick for the punty. The idea is to leave the tip fresh and the brick dust inhibits it from sticking to anything else. I guess I got one more flash here. JW is cooling the stick. So yeah that was the last one. JW is just giving it a nice flash so I'll grab it and I'll stick it on as close to center as possible. Guide it with my tweezers once it has a semblance of straightness. Then I'll switch to my water tweezers drop water on the neck line another drop tap and good. There goes the Ferg's with the pipe and I'll just take a paddle and I'll grab that neck and I'll find the high side then I'll just lift and let the Veronese neck just fall back on center. Now for that top since the base of the piece of the you know seven eighths of the piece is done that one eighth of the neck in order just to heat and get a good heat there I'll use the torch. Maybe it's cheating but I find that's the best way to get the best results for the little neck. I'll just now flash the whole thing and just give it a little extra heat because all I really need to do is finish off that neck and here's kind of a diagram of how I tweeze it how I trim it puff it and then open up and get that nice little swoop neck. Now that it's nice and hot in that area I'll grab my tweezers and tweeze it out switch the shears come in around that three to five o'clock position and then just click clip right into where I can get the mass or the size of the neck that I want. So a nice deep flash a little bit of extra on the neck and now it's just like I have a little cup I'm dealing with up there basically. So the first move will basically be to straighten off and make sure that the trim was executed properly. So jack's on the outside JW just goes across you can see how off the shoulder is but the neck looks fine. Deep flash now it's going to be puff time it's back at the bench take the Sophie give it a puff you kind of see how it's nice and towards the bottom of the neck and it's able to I'll be able to take that and then flare it all and it should just open into a nice top. So give it a little extra torch just to ensure that I can open it up nicely it's narrower there at the kind of the throat right where it meets the shoulder and just that area that I'm kind of torching with the oxypropane giving it a feather heat that's the area that I need to rip open. So by putting extra heat with oxypropane it enables me I don't have to spend as much time at the glory hole which could further mess up my already wonky shape but now I can come out put my jacks way deep in there and then just start opening up the neck kind of that swoop it's going nice trying to make sure I don't stick the neck too far in deep there I can take the jacks on the inside but also pull out on the outside by pushing against JW's paddle that way I have that nice swoop similar to how I have a swoop on the foot. From the flash back to the bench now it's starting to look as good as it's going to get here I can torch and kind of accentuate that shoulder a little bit you can also torch the top part and then give it a little puff so the neck sometimes has a happening of the pushing into that that thinner shoulder when you've been opening and whatnot so this is another good time to use the sophie to pop the neck out but also kind of give it a fuller shoulder so the sophie will make it a little bit more airy you can see how it pushed in just a little bit but I was able to get it kind of now it's kind of that egg balloon like shape now when doing that it's really important to have the cone of the sophie hot because it's going to basically touch all the parts of the neck so now I can kind of pull out the neck a little bit and man that shoulder is really hard for me to watch what a crap job so at this point it's basically just torching the piece cooling it down but making sure I put enough heat in that punny so that I can put a drop of water and shock it enough and bonk it off but spoiler alert I didn't do a good job for this I'm just taking and making sure that at least the paddle and the or the the foot and the neck line up again if you stop turning it doesn't look bad but the moment you turn what a damn nightmare so here I am not really caring I just give it a bonk and bonk the foot still stuck onto the punty and the piece snaps but here's two variances that I didn't fail at they worked out pretty good little close-up of the virgin mary finding out she was pregos with the original varanasi on the railing from the annunciation and here are a few diagrams showing the process of how I went about it hopefully you won't do as bad of a job and hopefully next time I won't do as bad of a job either again kind of that last little blow out on the pipe side and then putting that little nub nub bit or that flat disc and then opening the foot process and finally opening up and finishing it off the top so you have a nice small neck and opening for a single flower branch or whatnot and then my drawing combining her dalt's candy dish with the varanasi or kind of how I designed it or came to my own take of an old form this is probably one of the last ones of this session I hope you enjoyed thanks for watching cheers