The art and craft of scientific glassblowing - The Verge

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The art and craft of scientific glassblowing – The Verge

Published

4 years ago

March 10, 2020

Harry Miller

When other kids were blowing soap bubbles, Christine Roeger and her sisters were blowing glass bubbles. The bubbles would expand, big and shimmering, until they popped, sending tissues of glass as light as cling wrap floating to the ground. Typical childhood stuff — at least for the kids of a scientific glassblower.

Roeger still takes a certain destructive joy in blowing glass bubbles, but now, she’s a scientific glassblower in her own right, heating and shaping glass into custom scientific instruments. Roeger represents the third generation of her family to take up the career, following both her father and grandfather into a tight-knit community of science and glass.

“Most people that don’t grow up in the scientific glassblowing world don’t even know scientific glassblowing exists,” Roeger says. It’s highly skilled, intense work to bend over flames and handle hot glass that can easily shatter. It’s a challenging calling, but it’s also a passion for people who are drawn to the combination of art and science in their work.

Scientific glassblowing has changed a lot since Roeger’s grandfather got into the business when he returned from World War II to find that his old job as a lens grinder had disappeared. Some things have stayed the same — you still learn on the job, and it helps to know someone in the trade to get your start — but now there are new techniques and research needs to design for. And far too many people like Roeger, who are about to retire, aren’t quite sure who will fill their jobs in the future.

Verge Science went to Arizona State University to meet Roeger to see one side of this profession in action and get a window into the scientific glassblowing world.

“It is a custom shop, so if you can buy a flask from a chem glass or a company, buy the flask. But if you need something custom-made, you come to me,” Roeger says. To make her creations, she heats glass tubes over a flame that’s usually at 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. From there, she can make almost anything — from chambers that hold crickets to massive glass instruments that take up an entire wall.

In addition to learning how to shape glass, Roeger had to take chemistry courses in order to get her job. “If I didn’t have any background in chemistry, they would come in and I would have no idea what they’re talking about,” Roeger says. Every day, she gets some kind of new project, whether it’s a vacuum pump that takes 20 hours to piece together or a manifold that can be repaired quickly. While glass shops used to be the focus of chemists, now, biologists, engineers, and even students from art departments will come in with new projects for her. She’s never sure what each day will bring.

“I’m working with fire every day, and knives, and glass. I’ve had my fair share of cuts and burns. But, knock on wood, I’ve never needed any stitches,” Roeger says. That’s fortunate for someone who teaches a class on glassblowing that’s affectionately nicknamed “Burn and Bleed 101.”

It’s an extremely metal name for a class with an extremely deliberate purpose: “to give students an idea of what I can do for them as a glassblower and what they could do for themselves in their lab” Roeger says.

Roeger mostly works with grad students across the university’s four campuses, designing custom instruments for their projects. If she wasn’t there, they’d have to order a custom piece from a distant shop, which would take weeks to arrive. Roeger can typically put something together in a few days and for a lot less money. That also comes in handy for repairs. A grad student would always prefer a $35 repair fee to a $1,000 replacement from a catalog.

“Having a glassblower on campus is fundamentally important to our ability to innovate because we need to be able to fail quickly and make new mistakes,” David Wright, a researcher at ASU, says. “Things break all the time. It’s nice that she can repair them for us in a short turnaround time, but also she can collaborate with us about what’s possible that she can do in the glass medium itself, almost like an artist.”

Art and scientific glassblowing aren’t that far apart, though scientific glass requires far more precision and has much less room for error. Roeger’s job is focused on science, but she has had students go into more artistic pursuits — one of them made a neon cactus that sits in her office today. Roeger would like to do more art when she retires in a few years — maybe jewelry or something with wine bottles. “Glass blowing is always going to be a part of my life,” she says.

Glassblowing has been part of her life for a long time and part of her family’s life for much longer. Roeger and her dad started working with glass when they were around 12 years old. “My father would work nights and weekends, and I would go out and do little things for him,” Roeger’s dad, Mike Wheeler, says. He’d cut lengths of glass tubing, clean up the bench, and blow bubbles with his dad. Eventually, he became an apprentice, then a master glassblower, leading ASU’s glass shop for just over 30 years. Roeger took over from him when he retired.

“It’s not really a family business. We’ve provided a service to a lot of universities and companies over the years between my father and myself and Christie,” Wheeler says.

Passing down a career might seem odd to some people, but in scientific glassblowing, it’s almost the norm. “Ninety percent of the students I get know somebody that’s doing it, or know someone who has done it or turned them on to it on the internet,” Bob Russell, the instructional chair of the Scientific Glass Technology program at Salem Community College, says. “The other 10 percent just thought it would be a fun thing to do.”

Salem Community College is the best-known scientific glassblowing school in the country, and it attracts people from all over the world who are interested in learning the craft and might not have grown up blowing glass bubbles in the yard. But as Russell says, once you get your start in the career, “everybody pretty much knows everybody. If you don’t know somebody, you know somebody who knows them.”

There are some commonalities between the everybodies who make up the field. Nearly all are members of the American Scientific Glassblowers Society, the ones who got a degree in glass almost all went to Salem, and far too many of them, like Roeger, are retiring. Many are looking for people willing and able to take their spot.

“One of the things we’re facing right now is the knowledge void between newer glassblowers and the older glassblowers,” Russell says. It can take years, if not decades, to master glassblowing techniques and to master the equipment that they use. That’s true in academia (some of the lathes Roeger uses are from the 1980s) and in industry where many other scientific glassblowing graduates go.

“In some ways, it’s scary, because for a few years, when I was a student, it was really really really hard to get a job, because all the positions in production facilities, and in universities, and in national labs were all filled with people with years and years of seniority,” says Katie Severance, an alumna of Salem. Severance is now a foreman at a glass production company called AGI near Philadelphia, and he teaches at Salem.

Now that those people with so much seniority are retiring, it’s causing a seismic shift in the industry. “In the past five years we’re seeing an emergence of places realizing this and really lighting a fire under their ass, if you will, to get new fresh blood in there to get trained,” Severance says. It takes years of training for a scientific glassblower to really learn the ropes, so as people retire, there’s an increased demand for new apprentices.

There’s also a demand for new apprenticeships. Roeger has been pushing for the ability to train her own apprentice — a four-year program — but with her retirement date coming up, she worries that it might not be possible.

She taught her two sons how to blow glass bubbles at her home shop, but they aren’t quite ready to take up the family tradition. “There may not be any fourth-generation scientific glassblowers,” Roeger says, a little wistfully. “It would be really cool if we could do that and just carry on the legacy of my grandfather and my father.”

The demand is still there. Severance and Russell are seeing increased interest in the field in their program. They’re also trying to meet the demands of employers whose business is also changing. In academia, glass is getting smaller as chemists start working at nanoscales. In industry, biotech companies want people who can create huge manifolds and equipment for production.

“We’re constantly reprogramming the program,” Russell says. “Glass is constantly morphing into other things.”

Meanwhile, Severance has seen changes in the professional society, as people push for more open communication and knowledge sharing as a generation of master glassblowers retire. “Our jobs are so few and far between and spread out across the country,” Severance says. To keep in touch, they now have blogs, they record video demonstrations, and they’ve started teaching more at the annual conference, sharing tips and tricks learned over decades.

That sharing of knowledge is critical as glass continues to play an integral role in our modern lives. Industrial glassmakers like Severance are seeing huge demand from biotech, cannabis, and petroleum companies for massive glass distillation apparatus as they each race to make new products. Computing companies are increasingly looking for new, better, bendy glass. And at universities, people are creating glass instruments to unlock new secrets of our universe.

“That’s what’s alluring to me about our field,” Severance says. “We are changing the world as we know it every single day.”

With that kind of importance, glass itself isn’t going anywhere. “There always is going to be a need for a scientific glassblower on campus,” Roeger says. “I don’t know if it’ll always be there, but there is a need.”

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Art in Bloom returns – CTV News Winnipeg

Published

3 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Harry Miller

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Art in Bloom returns CTV News Winnipeg

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Crafting the Painterly Art Style in Eternal Strands – IGN First – IGN

Published

5 hours ago

April 18, 2024

Harry Miller

Next up in our IGN First coverage of Eternal Strands, we’re diving into the unique and colorful art in the land of the Enclave. We sat down with art director Sebastien Primeau and lead character artist Stephanie Chafe to ask them all about it.

IGN: Let’s talk about Eternal Strands’ distinctive art style. What were some of the guiding principles behind the art direction?

Primeau: I think what was guiding the art direction at the beginning of the project was to find the scale of the game, because we knew that we were having those gigantic 25-meter tall creatures and monsters. So we really wanted to have the architectural elements of the game – the vegetation, the trees – to reflect that kind of size.

So one of my inspirations was coming from an architect called Hugh Ferriss, and I was very impressed by his work, and it was very inspiring for me too. So just the scale of his work. So he was a real influence for Metropolis, Gotham, so I was really inspired by his work.

Chafe: I think one of the things that, just as artists and as creators, we were interested in as well was going for a color palette that can be very bright. And something that can really challenge us too as artists, and going into a bit more of at-hand painterly work, and getting our hands really into it, into the clay, so to speak, and trying to go for something bright and colorful.

Eternal Strands Slideshow – IGN First

IGN: That’s not the first time I’ve heard your team describe the art style as “painterly.” What does that mean?

Primeau: Painterly is just a word that can give so much room to different types of interpretation. I think where we started was Impressionist painters. So I really enjoy looking at many painters, and they have different types of styles. But we wanted to have something that was fresh, colorful, and unique.

And also, I remember when we were starting the project there was that word. “It’s going to be stylized,” but stylized is just a word that gives so much room to different kinds of style. And since we were a small team, we had to figure out a way to create those rough brushstrokes. If it was painted very quickly by an artist, like Bob Ross would say, “Accident is normal.” So I think we wanted to embrace that. And because we’re all artists, it’s hard too, at some point, to disconnect from what you’re doing. It’s like, “Oh, I can maybe add some more details over there.” But I was always the- “Guys, oh, Steph, that’s enough. Let’s stop it right there. I think it looks cool.”

IGN: So, when you create an asset for Eternal Strands, is somebody actually painting something?

Chafe: I can speak more on the character side. For us, we do a lot of that hand painting, a lot of those strokes by hand. And we try to embrace, not the mistakes, but the non-realistic part of it having an extra splotch here and there.

We’ve got brushes that we made that can help us as artists to get the texture we’re looking for. It really is a texture that gives to it. But a lot of the time it’s not just something generated in a substance painter, or getting these things that will layer these things for you, making it quick and procedural. Sometimes we have those as helpers, but more often than not we just go in and paint.

IGN: Eternal Strands is a fair bit more colorful than lots of games today. Why was it important to the team to have lots of bright colors?

Primeau: You need to be careful, actually, with colors. Because with too many colors you can create that kind of pizza of color.

We wanted to balance the color per level, because we’re not making an open-world game. I really wanted each level to have their own color palette identity. So we’re playing a lot with the lighting. The lighting for me is key. It’s very important. You can have gorgeous textures, props, characters, but if your lighting is not that great, it’s like… So lighting is key. And especially with Unreal Five, we have now, access to Lumen. It brought so much richness to the color, how the color is balancing with the entirety of the level. It definitely changed the way we were looking at the game.

We’re using the technology, but in a way to create something that feels like if you were looking at a painting. I think we have achieved that goal.

Chafe: I’m very happy with it.

IGN: What were your inspirations from other games or other media when developing the art style?

Primeau: I have many. I’ll start with graphic novels, European graphic novels. I really wanted to stay away from DC comics, Marvels comics, those kinds of classics.

Before I started Eternal Strand, I saw a video. It was one of the League of Legends short films for a competition. It’s “RISE.” I don’t know if you remember that one, but it was made by Fortiche Studio who did Arcane, and I’m a huge fan of Arcane. When I saw that short film, it was way before Arcane was announced, I was like, “oh gosh, this is freaking cool. This is so amazing. I wish I would be able to work on a game that has that kind of look.”

Chafe: For me, when we started the project, one of the things that I wanted to challenge myself a lot was in concept and drawing and stuff like that and doing more, learning more about color as well, which is something I find super fascinating and also kicks my butt all the time because of just color theory in general.

But with the [character] portraits specifically, I think, I mean, growing up I played a lot of games, a lot of JRPGs too. I played just seeing basic portraits in something like Golden Sun or eventually also Persona and of course Hades, which is a fantastic game. I played way too much of that, early access included. But I really liked that part. Visual novels too, just that kind of thing. You can get an emotion from a 2D image as well when it’s well done, especially if you have voices on top of it.

IGN: Were there any really influential pieces of concept art that served as a guiding document the team would reference later on?

Chafe: I have one personal: It’s really Maxime Desmettre’s stuff because it was so saturated. Blue, blue, blue sky. Maxim Desmettre is our concept artist that we have who works from Korea. When I joined the project, seeing that was just like… and seeing that as a challenge too, like ‘how are we going to get there?’

The one that I’m thinking of that hopefully we could find after, just in general with the work that always speaks so much to me is this blue, blue sky and the saturation of the grass. But also when he gets into his architecture and stuff like that, there’s just a warmth to everything. The warmth to the stone that just makes it look inviting and mysterious at the same time. And I think that really speaks a lot to it.

IGN: How did you go about designing Eternal Strand’s protagonist: Brynn?

Primeau: I think that Mike also, when he pitched me the character, he was using Indiana Jones as an example. So courageous, adventurer guy, cool guy. Also, when you’re looking at Indiana Jones, he’s a cool guy. And we wanted to create that kind of coolness also out of our main protagonist. And I remember it took time. We did many iterations.

Chafe: It was a lot of iterations for sure. Well, I think I had done a bunch of sketches because it’s what’s going to be the face of the player, and also to have her own personality as well in the story, and her history as well. And the mantle was a really big one too. What gives her one of sets of her powers and stuff, figuring that out was actually one of the longest processes. It’s just a cape, but at the same time, it’s getting that to work with gameplay and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, all of Brynn’s personality and her vibe really comes from a lot of good work from the narrative team. So, mostly collaboration there.

IGN: What’s the deal with Brynn’s mentor: Oria? How did you settle on a giant bird?

Chafe: Populating the world of the enclave was, “it’s free real estate.” You get to just throw things on the wall and see what sticks. And, “Oh, that’s really cool. Oh, that’s nice.” At some point I’d done a big sketch of a big bird lady with a claymore, and Seb said, “That’s cool.” And then kind of ran with it.

IGN: What’s the toughest part about the art style you’ve chosen for Eternal Strands?

Primeau: The toughest part was…A lot of people in the team have experience making games, so it was to get outside of that mold that we’ve been to.

For me, working on games that were more realistic in terms of look, I think it was really tough just to think differently, to change our mindset, especially that we knew that we would be a small team, so we had to do the art differently, find recipes, especially when we were talking about textures, for example. So having a good mix.

Chafe: One of the things too is also as we’re all a bunch of artists, and every artist has their own style that they just suddenly have ingrained in them, and that’s what makes us all unique as artists as well. But when you’re on a project, you have to coalesce together. You can’t kind of have one look different from the other. When you’re doing something more realistic, you have your North Star, which is a giant load of references that are real. And you can say “it has to look like that, as close to that as possible.”

When you have a style in mind and you’re developing at the same time, you kind of look at it and you review it and you have a feeling more than anything else.

You’re training each other with your styles as you kind of merge together in the end. And that kind of is how the style happened through, like you mentioned, like finding easy recipes, through just actually creating assets and seeing what comes out and, “Oh, that’s really cool. Okay, we can now use that as kind of our North Star.”

For more on Eternal Strands, check out our preview of the Ark of the Forge boss fight, or read our interview with the founders of Yellow Brick Games on going from AAA studios to their own indie shop, and for everything else stick with IGN.

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