Today was the second of the four class series I am taking at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. Today was all about practicing. Practicing how to sandblast the plates. Practicing how to transfer the image from the transparency to the resist. Practice transferring the resist to the glass plate. Practicing painting, with powders and beautiful, fast-drying paints. Practice sandblasting the resist off of the glass, leaving paint or a ghost image behind, to rub with paint or powder.
The sandblaster is an intimidating piece of equipment, a large box with a plexiglass window in which the user turns on the compressed air. places the glass plate into the unit, latches the door, flips two switches, places her hands into the attached rubber gloves, picks up a device that looks like a gun and presses down on a pedal to shoot air onto the plate.
Even though the unit is enclosed, dust goes everywhere. Which means wearing an itchy face to avoid inhaling the dust and lead-based paint particles. And because the unit is enclosed, the dust has etched into the window of the unit, leaving only a small section of clear window in which to work. This section is (naturally) in the most inconvenient location of the unit.
We are also required to wear masks while handling the paints and powders, as the majority of them are lead based. The lead makes the color rich, but adds an element of danger to the creation process. The masks can be removed if no one is working with powders and while washing out the resist.
Bad idea, I discovered shortly after leaving the center. Not only were my clothes saturated with dust and powder but I had also inhaled enough to make the rest of this afternoon rather uncomfortable. I suspect the mask will have to remain on through the entire class next week.
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