INDIANAPOLIS — “It was not ideal to graduate last spring,” reflected Molly Lyons on her 2020 graduation from Ball State. The New Palestine High School graduate had just spent four years working toward her Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in glass, but any kind of celebratory ceremonies and rites of passage were nipped in the bud, thanks to COVID-19.
Lyons graduated with dreams of setting up, running or facilitating her own glass studio — on her own or in a community center. However, the first goal for Lyons — and every college graduate — was to find gainful employment.
“Starting from scratch is not a cheap venture,” Lyons said.
Lyons was lucky; straight up U.S. Highway 52, just a few miles from her hometown, was GRT Hot Glass Studios. The business needed help; Lyons needed a job. Lyons moved home from school and started work almost immediately.
“The stars aligned for me there,” Lyons said.
Lyons, who has worked at GRT for about a year, shares instructor duties with Cindy Thompson, wife of owner Greg Thompson. Lyons teaches glass sampler classes while Cindy teaches classes in fusing in kiln-formed glass.
A typical class for Lyons involves leading a small group that has most likely never done a glass project before — from safety procedures to demonstration to creating glass artwork on their own. With painstaking detail, Lyons talks the would-be glass artists through their choice of projects, all lined up on display just inside the door. Class members can choose from a bird, a heart, a pumpkin or an egg paperweight, or a long-stemmed glass flower.
Students are allowed to select from more than 100 colors for their chosen project. Each project begins with sticking a long metal punty — a pole used in glasswork — into a furnace set at 2150 degrees. Students spin the punty around to gather up melted glass the consistency of fudge. Then the punty with the dollop of glass on one end is rolled across a table through a scattered handful of colored glass — called frit.
“You’ll be tempted to touch it to feel whether or not your frit has melted, but don’t,” Lyons cautions.
The punty then goes in and out of another furnace — the reheating chamber — as many times as needed to melt the layers of newly-added frit.
“It gets cold really fast once it comes out of the furnace,” Lyons explains. “To be able to work with it, you have to reheat it several times.”
A class with Lyons involves watching her first create a sample, and then leading the students through the project step-by-step. Today’s class was making a flower. Lyons led the class over to a table where she used a set of pliers to pull the out the petals for a glass flower. She then used a blow torch as a tool to smooth out any rough edges along the glass.
As one of the perks to her job among the hot furnaces day-in and day-out, she’s allowed free access to the studio. Her only expense is the colored frit needed for her projects. In this way, Lyons can continue to expand on her creative capabilities.
With Lyons’ college career ending during a pandemic, a thesis show — usually required for art majors — was one of things that fell by the wayside. GRT Hot Glass Studios is currently in the midst of an extensive renovation which will include a gallery and a gift shop. Lyons hopes to be able to show her work (as well as sell some pieces) at a future open house.
In the meantime, Lyons keeps busy by teaching the glass classes that fill up a month in advance, managing the studio and working on her art for the upcoming exhibit.
“I’ll get to have some closure with that,” Lyons said. “I’m just appreciative of being able to come back to my home town and share my love of glass with the community.”
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GRT Hot Glass Studios, owned by Greg Thompson, will host a First Friday Art Tour from 5 to 9 p.m. June 4 at GRT Hot Glass Studios, 6400 Brookville Rd., Ste D in Indianapolis.
The tour will include a showing of the thesis exhibition artwork of glass artist and Ball State graduate Molly Lyons, live glass blowing demonstrations, class sign-ups and refreshments. The work of Lyons and other artists will be available for purchase.
Visit grthotglassstudios.com or all 317-357-9006 for more information about the open house or classes.
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