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    In active glass studios, the furnace has to be continually running. The process of “charging” the furnace, which means replenishing the glass in the crucible, takes hours, so it is best done in shifts.  Throughout the day whoever is in the studio at a given time takes a turn filling up the hot melt furnace with more raw glass. When you make a drinking cup in a glass studio, you ideally have a partner to blow air into the pipe as you flatten the base so that it will sit straight when you set it down. But a drinking cup is relatively simple so just one assistant will do. As  projects grow in ambition so too does the number  of assistants required. Building and being part of a community is a necessity for glassblowing, and therefore, by choosing glass as my focus, I locked myself into developing strong cooperative skills alongside developing my craft.

    That said, as glass artists go, I am not particularly faithful to the actual material. I love glass and glass art. But I have always been interdisciplinary and I rarely make work from just one material. I am a glass artist in how I conceptualize my work and have grown in my studio practice. Creating my BFA show, Charging Furnace would not be achievable alone. It was carefully planned and constructed with consultation and sometimes a helping-hand  from family, friends, and the Ohio State Art Department. 
    My philosophy of glass is reflected by the scenery of Charging Furnace which is derived from city scenery. Just like the furnace in a glass studio, someone is always on call. In the city, there are taxi drivers, firemen, and clubbers watching over the town as it sleeps. And when they sleep, it’s those others who take over. Now that we are in a globalized world, as entire countries rest others are awake and busy all working towards interconnected goals. The fundamental instinct of human mutual effort is what I meditated on during this project. It’s both the condition of how things get done and the shared vision, the energy that illuminates our collective vision for community.  When you have invested in a place, a town, a people, a community: when you get tired someone else is there to take up the mantle until you are ready to get back up and join in again.  Thank you for reading!