degrees F. Exploring the Many While production and limited production items like glasses, vases and globes are pretty routine, Goldberg and Stevens are continually pushing themselves to fi nd new ways to use the medium. “Early on in my career I began realizing it’s going to take years to make what I see in my head,” Stevens laughed. Attributes of Glass Mike Stevens and Adam Goldberg of Gathered Glass take glass to a new level in Toledo's Warehouse District “The work will be inter-active, educational, and an homage to Kepler, who gave us the Laws of Planetary Motion (the way we orbit the sun),” Goldberg explained. “I hope the piece encourages viewers to consider their place on Earth, and within the solar system.” The studio also regularly hosts workshops and open houses to demonstrate and teach the basics of hot glass. “I talk to so many people who have never seen glass blowing before,” Stevens said. ”We give them a chance to come in and make a fl ower or a pumpkin.” Often they’ll fi nd that working with glass is a lot tougher than it looks. Glass is very malleable when it’s heated to extremely high temperatures. Sometimes it’s as liquid as honey and sometimes it is more like soft clay, Goldberg noted. The working temperature is 2,000 Jeff Mack and Rayn Thompson From handmade, functional objects such as drinking glasses and bowls, to one-of-a-kind installations, Gathered Glassblowing Studio co-founders Adam Goldberg and Mike Stevens are continually exploring ways to creatively use glass. In the heart of the Historic Warehouse District, the two glass artists utilize a shop and a gallery to produce items that are sold in their gallery and gift stores. At the same time, both are involved in commissioned pieces for a range of customers including hotels, cruise ships, hospitals and private individuals. The 38-foot long by 9-foot high map of the world at the Toledo Zoo Aquarium is just one example. Currently, Goldberg is working on a larger-than-life sundial for a public park in Bowling Green – a memorial to late community leader Judy Knox. Page10 Wind Bowls Gathered Glassblowing Studio is one of a handful of studios in Northwest Ohio, and each can credit the American Studio Glass Movement that began at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) in 1962. Harvey Littleton, a pottery instructor, wanted host a workshop to explore ways artists might create works from molten glass in their own studios, rather than in factories. “There were ceramic artists who wanted to use glass as a medium for art, but at the time it was mostly factory work, and it was cost prohibitive to use the material. Furnaces were 30 by 30 (feet) and you couldn’t operate out of a garage,” Stevens explained. According to TMA, a prototype studio furnace was built in the TMA garage, but for the fi rst three days of the workshop all attempts to fuse molten glass failed. Then Dominick Labino, who was vice president and director of research at Johns Manville Fiber Glass, showed up with advice on furnace construction, and with glass marbles that melted. Harvey Leafgreen, a retired glassblower from Libbey Glass, was then able to demonstrate his craft. Later that summer, many participants returned for a second workshop. In 1969, TMA constructed the Glass-Crafts Building, becoming the fi rst museum to build a facility and studio specifi cally designed for
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