Exploring Massachusetts: August 2013

This morning, after waking up early, I decided to use my coupon at Doughboy Donuts and Deli, a small Dunkin Donuts like place in the South Boston area to get some doughnuts and coffee for myself and my friend. I got half a dozen donuts, including the Boston Creme, Lemon and the Cookies and Cream Donuts, which weren't too bad I guess.

After breakfast, I did some sightseeing in town before heading to Norwood to collect the glass pieces I made on Thursday from the Luke Adams Glass Blowing Studio.

Family Nurturing Center

Greenwood Memorial United Methodist Church

Mother's Rest Park,

420 Washington Street, Dorchester

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church,

500 Talbot Avenue

In Norwood, my glass pieces actually turned out well,

although I did not really like the results of my choices of color for my pumpkin.

From here, I decided to head to Canton for my second breakfast at Kelly's Place, a diner in town.

Here, I decided to get the Steak Tip Benedict (grilled marinated steak tips with poached eggs coated with Hollandaise or cheddar cheese sauce. Served with homefries)

and the East Coast Waffle (Each triangle served with a different fruit: apple cinnamon, strawberry, banana, and blueberry. Served with whipped cream).

The presentation of the food was actually pretty good, along with the tastiness of it all. I only wish I had the time to finish it all, as I was going to be late for my jewelry workshop at Arte Mozzafiato in the town of Needham. I definitely recommend this place for breakfast though.

Thankfully, when I arrived at the extremely small studio located in the basement of the building, located right within a residential area, the class had just started. Our instructor showed us examples of what our final product might look like, and told us how unpredictable the glass would form during the melting process, like for example if we cut out a star, what might come out of the kiln could be a circle, and the color it shows could be totally different from what we expected as well.

Laid out in front of us were our tools for the day,

as well as the base pieces for the earrings and pendant I was to make today.

Our first task was to learn how to score and cut glass using a practice piece of glass. After dipping the key like glass cutter into oil for lubrication,

scoring involves holding the glass cutter in a pretty particular way,

then holding the tiny blade flush against the end of the glass piece and moving with application of some force against the glass in the desired direction.

After scoring is completed, one can then break the 2 pieces apart using a plier like gadget.

After the practice run, it was time to start making the real pieces. I decided to choose a dichroic piece of glass that would give a greenish hue when completed, although it looked yellow/golden in its initial uncut form.

My glass cutting skills were at best crude, and the glass refused to break along my scoring lines, but thankfully I managed to get out 3 similarly sized "squares" of glass.

I also used another glossy piece of glass to be fused together with the dichroic layer,

making the squares slightly larger than the corresponding dichroic ones.

Before placing the assembled pieces into the kiln, the pieces have to be cleaned with isopropanol to remove any impurities and dirt.

The kiln is very simplistic looking,

but pretty effective.

After the kiln reached above 1500 degrees Fahrenheit, it was safe to lift the kiln cover to try to see if the glass was melting.

It would take an hour more to complete the fusing process, so we were told to go grab some lunch nearby, so I decided to head into Brookline to use my groupon at Osaka, a Japanese restaurant in town, passing by the Brookline Savings Bank main office in town along the way.

The restaurant decor was pretty decent,

as was the presentation of the food I got, namely the Spicy Tuna Tortilla (Crispy tortilla with guacamole and spicy tuna, served with rosemary-honey wasabi sauce)

and the Garden Spring Maki (Organic asparagus, avocado, mango, lettuce and sun-dried tomato and kiwi. Served with mango-strawberry-kiwi sauce).

The tortilla wasn't as flavorful as I would have liked though, although it was heaped with tuna, while the maki was actually pretty tasty, more a sweet treat than a savory one.

Overall, not bad, I would come here again, although Fugakyu nearby is still the best in town.

Heading back to Needham, our pieces were completely fused by now, and mine had come out pretty nicely.

Now, it was time to glue the pieces to the corresponding bases using an epoxy glue.

With that my jewelry was completed, and the class ended.

From here, I headed back into Boston to visit the National Center of Afro American Artists Museum. Like before, the doors were locked and no matter how many times I rang the doorbell, no one answered. This time though, I decided to wait it out, and finally the lone curator came out and opened the door.

I was going to be very cross with him, but he started talking to me about the history of the world, with Ethiopia being the center of it all, and why there were so many wrong things going on in the world today. I learnt a lot from him, including some useful insights on what should be done to make things change for the better. He also showed me some of his artwork and the exhibits in the museum, which were pretty interesting to say the least.

From here, I headed to the waterfront to see what the Boston Arts Festival was about, located at the Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. Unfortunately, the stalls had all closed by then, but there were still some interesting art installations to be seen,

including a sign made of rubber ducks as well as musical performances.

Unfortunately, as I had to meet up with friends for dinner, I had to miss the fireworks and head to New Golden Gate Restaurant, a Chinese place at 66 Beach Street in Chinatown soon after.