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