Toyama and Tradition!

Over the last week we had lots of time to have a look around Toyama and the surrounding area. We also had lots of really good discussions with teachers, students and friends.

Toyama reminded us of Zwiesel as there are lots of display cabinets containing glass objects, dotted around the town centre. Also many of the street lights and bridges are decorated with glass. We strolled around, visiting the art museum and glass galleries and often went up the mountain to the Toyama City Institute of Glass Art.

We met some of the teachers at the glass school, who used the time over the mid-term holidays to work on their own projects. Many of them have come from abroad to teach here for 3-4 years. Stanislav Müller for example, who works in the cold shop moved here together with his family from the Czech Republic about a year ago to teach. We had a chat with him about Europe and Japan and the differences in culture and how they work with glass. He remarked that the Japanese students are particularly interested in traditional engraving techniques. Unfortunately two years are not quite enough to master the art of these very complicated techniques. However, he has developed ways for the students to get a good grasp of it and therefore to be able to take something away with them.

With regards to glass production, many Japanese look towards Europe. They are particularly interested in blowing into wooden moulds and aspire to attain a quick and precise method of production. Using their own ways, they try to do this as best as they can. This seems quite amusing to us, as we are so used to blowing certain shapes into moulds. Even Peter Ivy, who we’ll be working with next week, blows a large percentage of his pieces into moulds before he finishes them off in the furnace. Shahid, a friend from the USA, has been working for Peter for a month now and each day told us how difficult he finds the blowing into moulds. As we had learnt this at the college in Zwiesel, we normally don’t have a problem with this.  However, when Louise picked up glass from the furnace to try for herself, she quickly realised what Shahid meant. The Japanese glass is like chewing gum and doesn’t move anywhere on its own. With the glass being so much less malleable, the practice of blowing into a mould becomes a very different thing.