By Tom Winchester
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The DMG School Project
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NEA/Pinellas Recovers Grant Update
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The DMG School Project brings the art of glass to students who don’t otherwise have access to this art by offering demonstrations and workshops on-site at local schools. This project is funded, in part, by the Pinellas County Recovers Grant that’s awarded by Creative Pinellas through the National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan.
The DMG School Project helps to put the power of creativity into the hands of the next generation.
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I visited the Duncan McClellan Gallery in St. Petersburg to see the large, very hot equipment needed for the glass arts. It’s located in the Warehouse Arts District tucked away at the end of Emerson Ave at 24th Street South.
The DMG Project’s mobile furnace is housed there, and it is where Duncan McClellan and a team of glass artists host in-person demonstrations at their glass studio. The hot summer day was compounded by the heat of two furnaces burning in the studio. An oven with open flames had metal rods, used for shaping molten glass, protruding from it.
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Being in the studio feels like being in an Old-West movie. There are bulky tools and dangerous machinery that look like things blacksmiths used 200 years ago. Its high ceilings are vaulted overhead, which makes the warehouse floor open and expansive for mobility between stations.
The delicate precision of today’s technologies seem to have no place in the glass studio – there are no screens, no computers, no distractions anywhere in sight. All that’s in there is what’s needed for melting and shaping glass.
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On the day I visited, DMG School Project Instructor, Matt Szidik, was demonstrating how to create miniature horses out of glass. The process consists of Matt retrieving a blob of molten glass from the furnace and shaping it before the glass cools to the point of being solidified.
It’s a race against time, but it’s mostly a fight against gravity because the molten glass is flimsy and falls toward the floor as Matt is shaping it.
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With a twist, a twirl, a pinch and a pull, Matt forms the horse’s muzzle, then its mane, and then its legs and torso. The horse appears to grow out of the glowing-orange blob to become a transparent, glistening figurine.
The entire shaping process, from blob to horse, takes maybe less than two minutes.
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For the finishing touches, Matt picks up a blowtorch and focuses it on the horse’s tail. Once cooled, the horse stands about nine inches long and seven inches tall, with its foreleg raised. Matt made several of these during my visit, and he did so with a balletic fluidity.
Also in attendance for Matt’s demonstration was a group of teachers from St. Petersburg’s school system. As part of the DMG School Project’s programming funded by the Pinellas County Recovers Grant, groups of all kinds are welcome to attend glass demonstrations and participate in etching activities.
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This group of teachers engaged in an activity where they were given a wine glass or a glass plate to etch with a small knife. Afterward, they all took home their creations.
The activities offered by the DMG School Project and the Duncan McClellan Gallery are accessible to artists of all ages and skill levels. Whether it’s a hot demonstration with molten glass-forming or etching champagne flutes, their activities can be done without any previous experience with the glass arts. Be like me, and, when you visit, be sure to dress light, take lots of pics, and stay hydrated.
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The DMG School Project is a recipient of the Pinellas Recovers Grant,
provided by Creative Pinellas through a grant from the
National Endowment of the Arts American Rescue Plan.
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