Craft Campus Glass Studio

Landfill Gas Applications: Landfill gas will be the primary fuel for the
gas-fired glass crucible furnaces, annealing furnaces, glory holes and color furnace. The glass studio is the natural choice for any large-scale heat recovery and or exhaust treatment system. The gas will also meet general heating and cooling requirements for the studio.

Suggestions and Needs for Glass Studio: These notes represent a preliminary vision of the Craft Campus developed early in 2004

Hot Glass Studio

• Three benches
• Three glory holes
• Three furnaces: a big furnace, a continuous melt furnace and a color furnace
• back-up generator with auto controls, to keep blowers from going off and to maintain the continuous melt furnace in the face of power outages
• Large methane pipes should feed the glass furnaces and ceramic kilns -- the larger the methane pipe, the less noise
• Large hood over furnaces to heat studios
• Louvers and fans
• Five annealing ovens -- each 3x4 feet with two feet between
• Two-five casting oven -- each 4x8 feet
• Storage space and locker
• 20-foot ceilings
• At least one door opening large enough for forklift
• Emergency shower and eye wash
• Visitor safety barriers

Examples of glass studios which allow visitors:
-- Penland School of Crafts
-- Goldhagen Art Glass Studio, Hayesville, N.C.
-- Museum of Glass, Tacoma, Wash.
-- Appalachian Center for Crafts, Smithfield, Tenn.
-- Tamarack, Bekley, W. Va.

Cold Glass Studio

• Trench down floor
• Washable walls
• Excellent ventilation because of silica dust
• Soundproofing in rooms
• Classroom (40x48 feet) with a 10-foot ceiling adjacent to outdoor space
• Space for grinding, polishing, casting, air-drip compressor, cut-off saw
• Four 4X8-foot tables

Covered Outdoor Area 

• Total area should be 500 square feet
• Ten-foot ceilings made of clear material to allow for natural light
• Overhead electric outlets
• Overhead air-hose
• Portable diamond saw  

Batch Room

• Located close to sandblasting area (shared with Ceramic Studio) and as close to the hood as possible
• Chemical closet
• Dry mixer over 12x20-foot vent table with under-table exhaust
• Excellent ventilation
• Space to accommodate the use of a pallet jack

Fabrication Area

• Total area should be 600 square feet
• Space for construction, shipping/receiving, mixing sand, and storage of extra tools

Classroom

• Total area should be 500 square feet
• Dirty area used for discussion and critiques

Office

•  Total area should be 500 square feet
• Controlled work space
• Controlled storage space for tools and works-in-progress

Flamework/Neon Area

• Ten work stations, each with bench and hand torch
• Propane gas
• Five dedicated small annealing ovens, 110 volts not 220
• Several 3x4 foot tables with 12 square feet for each student and connectors at end of each table for flexibility in arrangement of space

Advanced Student Area

• Total area should be 1,500 square feet
• Tables
• Shelving

• Oxygen storage area located on loading dock
• Chemical storage area
• Dirty classroom
• Sandblasting area

Class and Studio Specifications and Recommendations

Nine entry students would meet for two three-hour blocks, one in the studio. Entry students could only blow glass during class times. Maximum class size would be nine.

A total of 27 students in Advanced Glass I, II, and III students would each have a six-hour block of time and students could blow glass the full six hours – and could also have an evening studio time if oversight could be arranged. Maximum use of methane is a must.

Because there are no glass courses currently offered, it will take two to three years to build to a maximum number of students. During that time, local area glass blowers, or resident artists, will want to use the facility. The methane gas, used in the Hot Glass Studio continuous melt, fires around the clock and should be available to as many in the community as possible.

A review of possible use of the Hot Studio might be:
-- 9 a.m.-midnight Monday-Friday (15 hours a day)
-- 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday (9 hours)
-- 1-6 p.m. Sunday (5 hours)

This schedule would require oversight for 89 hours a week. For individuals, either students or community artists, to use the Hot Glass Studio there would need to be oversight by a responsible individual. This can be accomplished in three ways:
1) faculty in a 6 hr class
2) paid studio monitors
3) a contract between the University and the nonprofit or for-profit (similar to food service contracts).

It has been suggested that a contract between the University and a nonprofit would be the best method of allowing a community use of the facility. Time periods would be identified and it would be the responsibility of the nonprofit to schedule artists, provide a person responsible for oversight and safety, and screen users for experience in hot glass.

There has been discussion of a fair rental of the space compared to other similar facilities and how rentals could be handled to ensure the person is trained in the process, security concerns and oversight. For example, artists using the Penland School of Crafts hot glass studio pay $175 per day. The Pittsburgh Glass Center rental rates are $300 for 10 hours in the hot shop, $95 for 10 hours in the cold shop and $135 for 10 hours in the flame shop. Participants in the Craft Campus charrette suggested $25-35 per hour was also a fair rate.

A studio monitor could be hired for 30 hours per week at minimum wage (including health benefits would total approximately $200 per week per person) with a set time to use the hot glass furnaces and hot shop. Since there are three benches and three glory holes, there could be two or even three monitors to cover 60-90 hours each week. UNC Asheville does not have a graduate program, and therefore there are not graduate student assistants available. In effect this “studio monitor” position would appeal to students with a B.F.A. or M.F.A. degree who want to build their “body of work” before launching a private practice. If the monitors were also able to sell their work in the gift shop on campus, it would be all the more attractive. Those at the Craft Campus charrette felt the minimum wage, health benefits in addition to the ability to use the hot glass and other studios would be very attractive to potential employees.