February 26th
In Toyama there is a glass studio about 30 minutes by bus from Toyama Station. They showcase a lot of local glass artists and there is a lot of beautiful work you can buy at the studio. They also have an extremely cool touristy type option, you can sign up to make your own item at the studio!
How cool is that? You get to actually work with molten glass and shape it into something you design. Most options are either to make a paperweight or a goblet. But since next week (March 3rd) is Hina Matsuri (the Doll Festival) they have a special option that you can make your very own hina dolls out of glass.
these are traditional hina dolls
Since my mom had been really interested in finding hina dolls to bring back home, and she wanted to try making something at the studio, I asked one of the teachers at school if they could call and see if we could make our own sets of hina dolls.
It worked out that if we went on a Friday morning we could both get the chance to make dolls. So I took that day off from work, and on Friday morning we woke up around 7 to get ready and make it to the bus stop by 8.
The glass studio is about a 7-10 minute walk from the bus stop, so we got off the bus and walked the rest of the way. Of course, since it is Toyama, it was raining. Luckily we brought our umbrellas.
Inside the studio we had to fill out some paperwork and pay. To make two dolls, one emperor and one empress, it costs 4,500 yen. Around $47.
After paperwork and payments were handled we were met by one of the glass artists. I was really nervous about trying to communicate, since my Japanese is nearly non-existent. However, much to my surprise and delight, he spoke English really well! As we found out later in the session, he studied glass works in Italy and the US.
Before we could get started he took us over to the display racks where there were a lot of different hina dolls. Some had been made by the professional glass artists, but most of what we looked at were dolls made by other visitors. He showed us the different shapes that we could make, the different styles of bubbles inside, the different color patterns all kinds of little tweaks and twists that we could put together however we wanted. He asked us to think about what we wanted to make and sketch it out on a piece of paper.
my design
my mom’s design
Once the design was done, he took us into the studio area. Where they have the giant oven-type thing in the center of the room that holds the molten glass. He told us that the glass is kept at a temperature of 1200 degrees Celsius so we had to be careful.
We got to choose the colors that we would want to use from a palate on one of the tables.
I chose blue and green for my emperor, and pink and purple for the empress. My mom chose a forest green for her emperor and a dusky rose for her empress.
After choosing the colors we met another glass artist who would also be working with us. Then it was time to get to work! I offered to go first. Ryuhei (the glass artist that spoke English) told me about how it was important to always keep turning the metal rod that held the glass. We took a heated rod over to the big oven-thing and dipped into the pool of glass.
The heat coming out of that thing was incredible. The kind of heat that just presses on you, and you feel like if you stand there long enough the ends of your hair will begin to singe.
We carried the red hot blob of glass over to a cannon-shaped oven.
This oven is used to reheat the glass. There isn’t any glass inside it, unlike the big oven-thing. The glass has to be kept hot so that it can be shaped. I wanted to have sort of an egg-shape with 5 bubbles on the inside. The two colors I chose I wanted swirled around so there were bands of color in a big swirl.
The first step was taking that first gather of glass and after it had been re-heated poking a sharp metal tool into it to make the 5 “star” bubbles. When they gave me the tool to poke it I was surprised at how the glass felt. I expected it to be…well either harder or more liquid like. It felt like I was poking taffy. Not like the rock hard taffy that you find at the back of the drawer, but firm taffy that still gives when you press into it.
Once I had poked the star bubbles Ryuhei took it back to the center oven to add another layer of glass. That’s how they get the little bubbles that seem to float in the middle of the glass. Once the next layer gets coated onto the layer with the holes poked into it, the change in the temperature is such that instead of melting into the holes it makes a pocket of air. I thought that was pretty neat.
Back into the heater again and this time when it came out it was time for some shaping. The other glass artist, Toyooka, didn’t speak a lot of English but he knew a few key words and was really good at pantomiming what he wanted you to do. They had me sit down on the bench. It has two metal arms to rest the pole on and a table beside it holding all the tools you need.
Ryuhei brought over the glass blob and Toyooka put a thick stack of soaked newspaper in my hand. They said that the shaping part, done with the pad of wet newspaper, had to be done while you are relaxed. You don’t want to squeeze the glass because it will be too much change in the form. “It’s better to have your hand like you are trying to hold a baby bird.” was how Ryuhei put it. Always keeping the rod and the glass in that rotating motion we shaped the glass to have the egg shape.
Ryuhei is holding the rod and Toyooka is helping me hold the pad of newspaper
After a bit of shaping it was back in the furnace to reheat. Noticing a pattern? Lots of reheating. When the glass came out of the furnace this time, it was time to add the color. Since I wanted streaks of color, we took the glass on the rod and rolled it onto pieces of colored glass on the metal table. It was really like rolling a sticky gooey piece of taffy. Using it to clean off the table and pick up all the crumbs.
rolling up the colors
Back in to heat, and then it was time to spin the color! For this bit I stood on the other side of the bench gripping a pair of what looked kind of like needle nose pliers. When Ryuhei brought the glass over, Toyooka helped me to stick the tweezers in the end and grab. Once we had a grip, Ryuhei twirled the rod and just like spinning taffy the glass spun around the pliers. The color swirled and pulled into strands. It was so incredibly cool.
More shaping, heating and adding another layer of glass. This is the final layer for the body. So my little emperor would have three layers of glass, one with the 5 bubbles, one with swirled color, and the final protective layer to seal it all in. More shaping and heating, making sure that there was a groove at the point where the rod ended and the glass kept going. That would be the point where they would break the hina doll free.
Then it was time to add the head and the hat. Ryuhei heated the body while Toyooka got a smaller rod and gathered a bit of new glass on it. Using tongs we attached the head by touching it down to the body.
Then came the hat! Cause you have to have a hat. Another glob of glass pulled out of the oven pot but before Toyooka brought it all the way to be attached he dipped the molten glass into a small bucket of powder to color it black. I wanted the emperor’s hat to be black. Then he rolled it onto a piece of gold leaf and brought it over to be attached to the head. A bit more shaping and…
me and the emperor I made
It was the same procedure for the empress and before long I had a pair. Now it was time for my mom to try her hand at it!
Her process was mostly the same with a few differences. Instead of the little star bubbles, she wanted a big bubble surrounded by a fizz of little bubbles. The way they get the glass to do that is take the first gather and dip it into a bucket full of a chemical that fizzes when it comes in contact with more glass.
So when you add the next layer, it will create the soda fizz all on the inside.
She also wanted to have her dolls be a solid color. So instead of rolling up chunks of colored glass, she had finely ground colored glass and sprinkled it over the body until it was coated.
The hole in the back of the box is actually a vacuum that they turn on so that you don’t inhale any of the glass dust.
The other difference that my mom’s had was that she wanted her empress to have a fan. Making the fan was a lot like making the hats, just instead of putting it on the head it was attached to the body.
finished Empress doll
We finished up and were told that we could pick the dolls up in a week. I had such a fantastic time there. It was really a lot of fun, and we made some beautiful hina dolls.
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