FREE WRITE

Glass is an incredibly fragile, unforgiving, and difficult medium to work with. For thousands of years, human beings have been manipulating glass into various different objects. Glass surrounds us our entire lives, but until becoming a flame worker, much of my relationship with glass was unconscious. I can remember the first time glass was pointed out to me as something that I should pay attention to when I was in Las Vegas at probably 11 years old for a hockey tournament and my father told me to look up at the ceiling of the Bellagio. I remember looking up and being instantly amazed at all the colors and more importantly how the glass was effecting the light being transmitted through it, it was incredibly beautiful. My father told me that the ceiling was made by a man named Chihuly, but that name would not become relevant to me until much later. Many people’s first interactions with glass are generally something falling off of a counter and breaking in their home, at which point they’re told to not go near it until it was cleaned up. This puts glass into the consciousness of many as something that could potentially be dangerous, and maybe this has something to do with humans’ innate obsession with the material. When I was a sophomore in high school, I unassumingly was looking for a movie on Netflix with friends when someone decided on the film “Degenerate Art: The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes”. As 16 and 17 year olds, anything having to do with marijuana or something illegal fascinated us enough to at least give it a watch, and little did i know this film would set me on one of the most fulfilling creative pursuits of my lifetime. After seeing artists like Marble Slinger, Banjo, Dosh, Salt, Marcel Braun, and countless others in this film creating magnificent pieces of art and coming together to collaborate and share their ideas, I became hooked. Later that year, Instagram came into my life, and I quickly found myself seeking out these artists to get a closer glimpse at their work and lives. I was then and am still always looking at glass art, and it continues to fuel my own passion by remaining connected to a vibrant community of artists that continue to push the boundaries of the medium and art itself. In 2016, after years of seeking out instruction unsuccessfully, I finally got behind a torch for the first time. I would be lying if I said the connection was immediate, because I could hardly stand the heat that was coming off the torch and glass, it was unlike anything that I had ever experienced and I momentarily began to panic thinking that my dream of being a glassblower was going to be foiled within the first few hours. Luckily I began to settle in, and having now blown glass for a few years I can say that it gets easier and easier over time and your body adapts and becomes more heat tolerant, beyond the point that many people can even imagine. Upon arriving at Rutgers, I finally found a more permanent situation that allowed me to blow glass, meeting my now best friend Jacob Moskowitz. Jacob has been making glass since he was 15 and has a BFA in glass from Cleveland Institute of Art and is one of the most technically skilled and multi-faceted glassblowers in the industry. Jake took me under his wing and opened up his shop, and his life to me and has been the driving force in my development as an artist, a glassmaker, and a human since I met him. He has never told me an idea is a bad one, and he has always given me instruction when and where I ask for it which has enabled me to progress at a much faster rate than someone discovering glass entirely on their own. Glass has become central to my life, and has provided me with incredible opportunities the likes of which I had previously only dreamed of. I have been able to meet some of my heroes in the medium and the consensus I have gotten from nearly all of them is to just continue to push yourself. Do whatever you need to do and make whatever you need to make to be able to continue making glass. Developing a style, a business, a collector base, or a skill are all products of time on the torch, so whatever enables you to have time on the torch is what needs to happen.

Fargo

The  movie that I chose was Fargo. This movie was genuinely spectacular, and I am surprised that I hadn’t seen it before this assignment. The general mood of the film was very eerie and dark with the whole movie being about a planned kidnapping gone wrong leading to multiple murders. the director did an amazing job with the setting of the film, and being able to film on days that were extra grey and dreary. I seemed to get colder just watching this movie even though I was in South Florida due to the snow and cold that was readily apparent throughout the film. While it wasn’t a camera specific piece to the film, I think the accents and manners of the characters that were native to the area in the film (which doesn’t include the henchmen) really contrasted the severity of what was going on. All over the place people are being kidnapped and murdered, but the use of language and accents seemed to soften the blood and gore. A perfect example of this would be when Marge comes across one of the murderers putting his accomplice through a wood chipper and hysterically points to the badge on her winter hat as if he wasn’t aware she was a police officer. Another moment would be when Marge and her partner come across the murder scene and are then leaving discussing the license plate and she criticizes his police work ever so politely. That scene was filled with intensity, but the characters voices left me wanting to smile at dead bodies, I thought that sort of interplay throughout the movie was fantastic. The opening shot of the film includes a long shot of a low visibility snow covered road, and the Sierra that at the time is being driven by Jerry comes into view driving towards the camera. At the end of the movie, an almost identical landscape is used, and the shot is framed the same, but this time it is police cars and ambulances that make their way down the snowy road. Another shot that I enjoyed was the overhead shot of the snow covered parking lot where Jerry is parked after meeting with his father-in-law and the other investor. You can see the architecture of the parking lot with multiple potted plants marking what you can assume is medians within the lot, but everything is so covered in snow that none of the individual spaces or roadways are visible. Snow is everywhere in this movie, and it really translates the harsh reality of winter. Any shot that includes Marge and Norm’s bed was I thought important to the film. When they’re first showed, Marge is receiving the call early in the morning about the murder on the road, and Norm insists on making her breakfast before she heads out, it also is present when Marge’s old friend, Mike, calls her and invites her to dinner, and when the bedroom reappears, Marge has just returned from solving the case, and Norm lets her know about how he got his imagery on the 3 cent stamp which she is proud of him for.
Ever since he insisted on fixing her eggs, I became a big Norm fan, and when she finally cuddles up next to him after ditching the weird crying guy I found myself smiling and excited for Norm and their future together. The movie appeared to use a lot of medium shots that switched between characters during dialogue, and there didn’t seem to be many extreme close ups. I prefer cameras allowing more into the frame because as the viewer, it gives me more things to consider in a scene and allows the director the ability to slip more small nuances into the film.

Final Video Proposal

Final Video Project Proposal
Nolan Callahan

My own obsession with blowing glass can probably be traced back into my childhood, but mainly began in high school. I was 16 years old, watching Netflix with friends, and came across the documentary “Degenerate Art”. The year was 2011, and after having my entire world opened up to the possibilities of flame worked glass, it was obvious that I had to try this. Around the same time, I began to become more intensively involved with lacrosse, and the subsequent spring season, and summer recruiting circuit garnered much of my attention. I spent long hours traveling between recruiting events, summer tournaments, and college visits, and much of my time was spent looking at Instagram. My feed was filled with glassmakers, and I stared at their work for hours on end, wondering how it was possible to manipulate glass into such beautiful forms. The first glass I found myself looking at was glass pipes. The form was beautiful, the function was illegal, and the entire energy and community surrounding glass pipes was compelling. From Grateful dead parking lots to some of the finest galleries and exhibits in the world, glass pipes has certainly elevated lamp working as a whole, and the impact that the pipe movement has had on glass art will endure. About 5 years after watching Degenerate Art, I finally found myself behind the torch. The first day was one of the most intimidating things I have ever done in my life. I had never experienced heat like that in my life, and in the first few hours, I thought that there was no way I could ever do something like this. After i settled in, i managed to be on the torch for a solid 8 hours and created my first objects out of glass, a small glass cane and a tiny marble that still resides in my grandmother’s collection. I was officially hooked. At the end of that summer I found myself at Rutger’s University, and tried to seek out the scientific glassblower featured in the Science Department directory. I made my way to the tiny shop in the basement of the old biology building on Busch, and after about 5 or so attempts where I found the door locked and no one there, I finally turned the corner to see a huge flame coming off of a torch mounted to a lathe spinning endlessly. This lathe was operated by a stout dreadlocked man, and I met him with “Dreadlocks? I must be in the right place!” He laughed and introduced himself as Jake Moskowitz, and after six hours of getting to sit there and watch him make some delicate scientific repairs we made arrangements for me to head up to his shop in Roselle Park. That was a bit over two years ago now, and we have grown into close friends. Our relationship of master/apprentice has become blurred more into brotherly love. Jake has given me every resource and opportunity to realize my ideas in glass, and his experience has helped guide me through the ever frustrating process. Prior to meeting Jake, I wanted to be a pipe maker just like the ones I had seen in “Degenerate Art” and on Instagram, but Jake quickly shook that idea out of my head by exposing me to the larger world of glass as a material industrially, artistically, scientifically, and beyond. Glass truly is one of the most amazing materials in the world, and it has given me life. Glass supplies me both a purpose, and a vibrant artistic community to be a contributor to. It allows me to attack pretty much any project my mind can conjure up, and only rewards patience, practice, and humility. The finest glass pieces I’ve made come from a place of my purest intentions, when I can let go of all else that could’ve been bothering me in that moment and find another level of focus where it is just me and the glass. This is a video on glass, and my process, but it really is a video about my life. Where I draw inspiration from, my approach to making an item, and the fragility of the medium are all in themselves ways for me to communicate my thoughts and feelings about my own life. Glass has given me life, and I no longer could imagine a life without it.

1st Video Outline

Below is my first rendition of a plan for my video project. Upon meeting with Aimee in conferences, the direction of the video has changed to encompass more of my own personal path through glass, as well as my process with a hope that I can create parallels to my own life outside of glassmaking. 


Nolan Callahan
Video Project Proposal
Aimee Labrie

Video Title: “Headies”, “Heady”
Theme/ Concept: The Art and Culture of Glass Pipes
Genre: Nonfiction Documentary
Synopsis: This film is a tribute to the documentary film “Degenerate Art” that was made by Marble Slinger. Slinger is a veteran glass pipe maker who has been one of the most public voices of the movement being involved in the borosilicate glass scene around its beginnings in the late 90’s in the parking lots of Phish shows. With his work both making glass, and making “Degenerate Art” Slinger and many of his close friends and fellow glassblowers featured in the film have paved the way for the next generation of glass pipemakers. They also helped to create an enormous community that is immersed in their artwork bringing a newfound level of acceptance of the formerly illicit activity of making glass pipes. As universal opinions on cannabis have evolved as more and more states have begun to vote in new laws, these glass artists have begun to reach a new level of cultural significance. The pipes in this film were what originally inspired me to want tot blow glass for the first time. Discovering glass opened me up to endless creative expression, and allowed me to truly find myself. This video would be of the process of creating collaborative glass pipe between myself, my close friend Dimitrious Patakos, and my close friend Jacob Moskowitz. Immediately upon meeting Jake we struck up a serious friendship around our love of glass. Jake opened up his shop to me and allowed me to freely explore the medium that had captured my imagination for years ever since first seeing Degenerate Art. His depth of knowledge in glass having completed his BFA in glass at Cleveland Institute of Art and also serving as the head scientific glassblower for Rutgers University allowed me to be exposed to every corner of the glass universe. Through the time we have known each other, we have rarely worked together in an intensely organized process like what this project would require. We have developed multiple business more recently, and those have captured much of Jake’s time and attention along with school taking up much of mine. We both bonded over our love of glass pipes, and this creation will be an ode to our friendship as well as a toast to our newest ventures together as the shop makes its way to becoming the public access teaching facility we have been working everyday to create. We will soon be able to teach even more people about our love of glass. Dimitri is one of the strongest people I know. He has come through incredible hardship to reach where he is today. He recently opened up his own glass gallery in downtown New Brunswick that features much of his own work, but also some of my own. At only 22, Dimitri is an incredible artist that makes intricate designs and incredible sculptures seemingly just fall out of his hands. All of our styles and abilities will be able to feed off of one another as we assemble our vision. One of the most iconic scenes of Degenerate Art takes place at the mountain studio of Matthew Stroven, known popularly by his pseudonym Banjo. Banjo, along with a number of other artists assemble an incredible piece that required insane technical ability. A glassblowing legend, Robert Mickelsen, who at the time of the filming specialized in goblets and fine art, visited the mountain studio to witness the piece being made, and heralded the ability of the young artists but in the same questioned the point of having to make it into a pipe. Currently, Robert Mickelsen almost exclusively makes pipes, and his own transition from staunchly anti-pipe to pipe maker is really the whole representation of cannabis’s ability to permeate American consciousness since around 2011. Things have moved extremely quickly around normalization and cannabis culture has been pulled in every which often for financial gain. It is important to highlight a craft movement that features some of the original cannabis activists and entrepreneurs. The glass pipe movement is here to stay, and this video will be both a the documentation of the creation of a glass pipe as well as accompanying interviews with the artists creating it to serve as narration and cut scenes in a very similar style to Degenerate Art. I am even debating filming this on a lower quality camera like a JVC to capture a bit more underground feel as the East Coast is the final frontier for cannabis legalization and normalization. It still isn’t fully accepted here, but the scene is full of enthusiastic, driven artists that are chomping at the bit to make their next heady. This video is a short glimpse into the life of 3 of said artists.