Hot Wheels: Glass center’s demonstration van comes to Monroeville

The temperature rose to the neighborhood of 2,150 degrees Fahrenheit.

“At least ideally, that’s where we want it,” Rob Warden said. “Once the glass goes below a thousand, it will break. So we call a thousand cold.”

He and fellow artist Chris Ross arrived at Monroeville Public Library on July 16 in the Pittsburgh Glass Center’s Hot Wheels van, which takes glass-blowing demonstrations on the road, complete with a furnace that almost would melt molybdenum.

The fired-up annealer, to be technical, was fine for that afternoon’s purpose of heating pieces of glass to the point where they could be shaped into whatever the artists chose.

But the weather was a different story: a breezy, rainy, relatively cool break in what so far had been an otherwise hot, dry summer.

“Just imagine what this wind is doing,” Ross said as he and Warden collaborated on creating a wine glass. “We really have to adapt to that environmental change.”

They adapted, for the most part, through the shaping of the bowl and attaching of the stem. The base, or foot, didn’t go as well.

“Aww,” came a collective sigh from those in attendance, who nonetheless were impressed with what had been accomplished to that point.

For the next mini-project, Warden gave several suggestions, with a glass figure of a finned sea creature winning the audience’s consensus. And after plenty of finely detailed sculpting and a few rounds of baked fish, so to speak, the finished product drew a hearty round of applause.

While they worked, Ross and Warden were happy to answer questions and provide details about the art of making glass that could come in handy for trivia contests.

“Traditionally, Italian glass is really thin and delicate. Anybody know why?” Warden asked, finally revealing: “They didn’t want to pay the shipping charge.”

Ross spoke about malleability of the materials they were using.

“All of this glass we’re using here is very, very soft, probably glass at its softest state,” he said. “Everything other than furnace glass is most likely to be very stiff, very brittle, doesn’t want to move. It doesn’t want to become spherical, or what have you.”

Among other lessons, audience members learned that the colors of various shades of glass derive from the metals that are used in its composition. For example, iron lends a greenish hue, and to produce red takes a sufficient amount of gold.

The glass for the Hot Wheels demonstrations came from broken shards.

“All of this is being recycled,” Warden said. “We try to recycle most of our materials.”

Established in 2001 by artists Kathleen Mulcahy and the late Ron Desmett, the Pittsburgh Glass Center is a nonprofit, public-access education facility at 5472 Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Friendship neighborhood. The center also serves as a gallery, studio and venue for in-house demonstrations.

Away from the center, the Hot Wheels vehicle is scheduled to make several stops within the next month:

• July 30 — Hill District Arts Festival, Centre Avenue (free)

• Aug. 11 — Aspinwall’s Big Night Out, Aspinwall Baseball Field (free)

• Aug. 13 — Barrel & Flow Fest, Stacks at 3 Crossings, Strip District (ticket required)

• Aug. 14 — Fayette Praise Fest, Fayette County Fairgrounds (ticket required)

• Aug. 27 — South Fayette Community Day, Fairview Park

For more information, visit www.pittsburghglasscenter.org.