A Quick Tour of Master Craftsman Studio

-
Plans

Megs has been working a part-time unpaid internship at the Florida State University Master Craftsman Studio on West Gaines Street. The Master Craftsman Studio is an in-house studio to the university. Master Craftsman works with many university departments for the production and installation of art. Master Craftsman has been setup to be a self-subsidizing auxiliary of the university which means they need to generate their own funding through projects they do for the university. As is unfortunately typical for self-funding organizations such as this, the funding is slim, especially in tough economic times as these. And they have to be careful not to charge "too much", which means they're probably not charging as much as they should.

Megan had already established a good reputation with the Master Craftsman staff while an undergraduate, which allowed her to apply for the unpaid internship after she graduated and to be accepted. In return she's allowed to share a corner of the studio with access to studio tools and supplies and the ability to practice and strengthen her natural abilities. It is, in part, a continuation of her undergraduate studies in a more practical environment.

Today she showed one of her projects, glass frames using a firing technique that fuses multiple glass pieces together into a beautiful whole. The designs she's produced lately integrate the university's colors and some of its design motifs. Some of the issues she faces while creating these frames is in carefully measuring and cutting the glass, the cleaning of the cut edges, and making sure that the glass is completely clean of any fingerprints before the firing. Some flaws and mistakes aren't evident until the piece is created, and by then it's too late.

Design

The frames aren't the first project she's worked on. She's been helping the full-time staff since June with a number of different and interesting projects within the studio.

C-clamps

Studio Interior

Winged Victory

I know this is "dad" speak, but I'm very proud of what she's accomplished and continues to accomplish.

Comments

  1. wjl (Wolfgang Lonien)November 21, 2011

    Wow - that first photo is excellent. And as a father of some 30, 24, 21, and almost 7-year olds, I totally get the "dad" aspect. Thanks for sharing, and, oh - I hope your knee's better.

    ReplyDelete
  2. wjl (Wolfgang Lonien)November 22, 2011

    BTw - thanks for adding my site to your links; I feel quite honored!

    ReplyDelete
  3. BillNovember 22, 2011

    Thanks and you're welcome.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All comments are checked. Comment SPAM will be blocked and deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

A Decade Long Religious Con Job

-
Image
I rarely write inflammatory (what some might call trolling) titles to a post, but this building you see before you deserves it. I've been seeing this building next to I-4 just east of Altamonte/436 and Crane's Roost for nearly 12 years, and never knew who owned it. Today on a trip up to Lake Mary with my wife I saw it yet again. That's when I told her I wanted to stop by on the way back and poke around the property, and photograph any parts of it if I could. What I discovered was this still unfinished eighteen story (I counted) white elephant, overgrown with weeds and yet still under slow-motion construction. It looks impressive with its exterior glass curtain walls, but that impression is quickly lost when you see the unfinished lower stories and look inside to the unfinished interior spaces. A quick check via Google leads to an article written in 2010 by the Orlando Sentinel about the Majesty Tower. Based on what I read in the article it's owned by SuperChannel ...
Read more

Ten Reasons to Ignore Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux

-
There is a tradition amongst the hard-core Linux aficionados to extol Linux's various virtues as a list of 10 or more reasons to substitute (as in "dump") an existing Windows installation with Linux. There's no reason to point them all out; a simple Google search (" 10 reasons to use Linux ") will provide you with such lists stretching back through the years, as well as hours of entertainment. One very recent list caught my eye over the weekend, published by PCWorld. Their article, " Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux ", seems to have hit a nerve with me. Normally I just ignore such journalistic pap, since the majority of it comes courtesy of one ill-informed blog or another (such as this one). But in this instance a "real" publication put some time and journalistic "credibility" into this list, which places it in front of a wider audience than the typical blog poist (again, such as this one). So let's consider al...
Read more

Former Eclipse user re-evaluates Eclipse 3.3M5

-
Image
I've been using NetBeans for a while now, starting with version 4.2 in beta. One of NetBeans' key selling points (in my not-so-humble-opinion) is Java GUI building with Matisse . That feature continues to be quite powerful and unrivaled, especially for a free-as-in-beer IDE. I even wrote a lovely paean to the wonders of NetBeans and why I moved away away from Eclipse to NetBeans . Now, it looks like I may have to eat some of those tastefully written words. What you're looking at above is a complete Ruby on Rails project hosted and running within Eclipse 3.3 Milestone 5 on Windows XP. Milestone 5 was released this past Friday, February 9th. I installed it Saturday, and then went on a plugin hunt to fill out additional features and capabilities. Why did I decide to re-install Eclipse, especially a milestone? So that I could get a complete integrated development and test capability in one convenient package for Ruby on Rails. Like a lot of other folks I've been playing ...
Read more