Glass Blowing for the Blind

Glass paper weights my students made in a hot shop

 I was so impressed on our recent field trip to Louisville, Kentucky, with a glass blowing studio called Flame Run. There, employees was able to help my students, who are legally blind, create paperweights from glass. 

Each student chose two or three colors that they wanted to use in their piece. The hot glass was "dipped" into trays of specks of each of those colors and heated again. Then students used tongs to pull and twist their glass to create swirls of color. The staff guided hands of students who needed a little extra help for the first few tries.

The colors that are chosen don't look like the ones that are placed on the hot glass. It isn't until the process is over and the chemical process is complete for the desired colors to show. The pieces needed to slowly cool in a kiln to prevent cracking. Sweet, Meg Outland, from the American Printing House for the Blind, picked the finished paperweights up, after they had cooled, and shipped them to Georgia, where my students could finally feel the forms and grasp the process. It's not enough to read about or discuss the process, my students need to experience these kind of things first hand for all that we learn in class to make sense.