- On this episode of "Making," we visit a place where craft builds community through creativity, blow your mind with glass art like you've never experienced, and find a hidden gem for crafters and artists alike.

That's all next, here on "Making."

(electronic screeching) This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(rolling string music) (rolling string music continues) Hello and welcome to "Making," a show dedicated to makers and the artistry of their craft.

I'm your host, Matt Burchett.

Thank you so much for joining us.

This week, we begin here at Craft Alliance, a non-profit art center dedicated to nurturing and inspiring engagement and creativity through contemporary craft.

(rolling string music continues) - Craft Alliance started in 1964 as an artist guild, and has been around for, at this point, 60 years, and has really grown into an important arts education facility here in St. Louis.

Our mission is to nurture and inspire creativity.

- [Instructor] Try to put some force behind- - We have five studios, which allow people to practice all kinds of materials and techniques.

We have the printmaking studio, where we also do paper making and book binding.

We have our metals studio, which allows people to, for example, make jewelry and do casting.

We have the woodworking studio, where we have lathe turning, and carving, and laminating.

We have the textile studio, which includes looms that people can weave on, but also do embroidery and dyeing, and all kinds of techniques that have to do with fiber.

We have our glass studio, which allows for smaller scale glass making, including flame working, and kiln forming, and doing things like stained glass.

And we have the ceramics studio, which is probably our most popular studio, and really includes everything from hand building to throwing pottery on the wheel, to glazing, so that people can really try an enormous range of different crafts.

- Craft is one of those art forms where it's all about communication.

It's communication from instructors to students, it's students communicating with materials as they learn how to throw a vase, or weave a tapestry, or make a metal locket.

And so we're not only empowering people and inspiring people to follow their creative pathways in life.

But ultimately, hopefully making people better communicators both in their day-to-day lives, for students to be able to express themselves, whether they are 15 or 84, to express themselves in the studios and hopefully outside of the studios.

- And now those will all be shiny and pretty underneath when it's fired.

(metal clanging) - The summer camps here are really exciting.

The students get to spend a half day in one of our studios for the entire week.

And you know, the younger kids start off at age seven, they're in the textile fiber studio, the clay studios, printmaking and paper arts, exploring different craft media probably the first time.

What's really exciting is when kids get to the age of 10, they unlock different studios for summer camps, so they're able to expand on those craft forms that involve fire and saws.

And that's something that's really exciting to kids.

It's something unique to St. Louis as far as offerings.

And not only is it fun of course, you know, it's exciting to play with fire in the glass studio, but it's also building confidence with the kids as well, it's building eye-hand coordination, muscle memory.

So for me, like the Craft Alliance summer camps are such a crucial part to learning not just an art form, but just learning how to become a responsible kid.

- For me, Craft Alliance is really important because of the way it encourages creativity.

One of the exciting things about the crafts field is that it touches on many different areas of our life.

So from design, thinking about functional things, to art, thinking about things that are meant to express ideas or give messages, there's so many ways in which craft intersects with so many parts of our life that it's just an amazing opportunity for expression.

I also think craft in particular, has the ability to connect people.

I think about things like quilting circles, parents and children or grandchildren working together on family traditions.

So craft has a really special quality of bringing people together that I feel is important to have in a world that can sometimes seem really disconnected.

(deep rhythmic music) (deep rhythmic music continues) (gentle thoughtful music) - To be honest, when I went to college, I did not know that my department teaches glass, I did not know.

And so at the first day of class, I finally realized that, "Oh, they teach glass here."

And when I tried something, to play with glass the first time, at the first moment, I just had this kinda like very clear, clean feeling, "Wow, I'm gonna go for this."

That's how I actually got into glass.

I work with the clear glass mostly because it's also kind of like related to my concept.

And when glass blowing happened the first time, they create this very crystallic clear glass, which is called a crystallo in Italian.

And I am working with traditional elements and tryin' to work with original designs and stemwares from the past.

And that's kinda like, I want to stay with the clear glass to show my work.

(gentle rhythmic music) My figures are actually constructed by this, so all traditional glasswares.

I use those techniques and try something different way, or my own unique way to create my own work.

That's kinda like basically how I do it.

So like briefly, the process will be like, I will deconstruct this traditional goblets or any glasswares.

I will deconstruct them, split them into all individual part, and then I will use those parts to transform into the figurative designs.

Blow.

I usually tell people like, "I make goblets, but I don't make goblets."

And they go like, "What are you talking about?"

(laughing) And then I show them and then they go like, "Ah."

(laughing) It's kinda like complicated how to describe my work, it's not easy.

And I try not to tell people that it's exactly a toy or it's exactly a transformer.

No, I don't really try to tell them because I want to lead their own imaginations, and let them imagine whatever they want to think.

So it could be transformer, it could be Gundam, it could be toy.

But also, like since you mentioned about this toy, is like toy is a big part of my life actually.

It's like most of time of my childhood, I spent with the toys.

And that's why I believe that I have this ability, how I see things and how I create things, design things, because I have all this memories of playing with the toys, you know, making toys, playing with the toys.

I have all this data in my head, and I can use that to create my own work.

(gentle rhythmic music) Sometimes I let people touch it, you know, so they can kinda feel the textures or this like lines.

But so far, a lotta people, they would just step back.

Some people, they even get nervous, you know, they get anxious, they start to breathe hardly, you know?

Like, that's what usually happens when they see my work.

But I mean, I really want people, you know, just like playing with the toys, I really want people try touch my work, and I'm trying so far.

(laughing) (gentle oscillating music) Recently, so far, I've been making large scale of my pieces, and they take months to make one.

This guy right here, that took almost eight months to finish it.

So for large scales, it's a quite different process.

For large scales, I will have to make all the parts separately and then cold assemble them later.

But if I'm going for like small scale, like a little bigger than hand size, I can actually finish in glass blowing studio which takes about four hours.

In glass, there's always a debate between craft and the fine art.

You know, people will always just debate like, "Is a vessel or cup?

They're handmade, but are they art?"

you know?

And we're also kinda like stuck right now to develop our creativity, or trying to make something new.

We're kinda like stuck there.

So I really wanted to show people that like, even with the craft forms, like functional forms, functional pieces, we can make something new, we can make something different, we can make something unique, cool.

That's actually a really important part of why I blow glass.

Why am I working with glass?

And that's kinda like one of the reason, a very important reason.

And it's for community, it's not just for myself.

(gentle rhythmic music) (deep rhythmic music) (deep rhythmic music continues) (torch blowing) - So we're back here today at Craft Alliance, and I'm joined by Kelly.

And Kelly is a metalsmith and an artist here, and she's got some stuff set up for us to try out today.

What are we lookin' at here, Kelly?

- Matt, thanks.

I'm glad you're here because I would like to share with you how to do some solder inlay.

- Okay.

- And so we're gonna take copper and hard silver solder, which is an alloy of zinc, silver, and copper.

And we're gonna melt that into a design that we create on the flat sheet.

And it's great because this is an ancient decorating technique where the value comes in the difference in color, you've got silver versus copper.

And we'll put a nice patina on this copper, and that design will really pop out.

- Okay, cool.

Well, how do we get started?

- Well, the first thing we're gonna do is we need to anneal this metal.

You wanna feel that, can you bend it very much?

- So it's- - It's kinda stiff, right?

- It's a little bit, yeah.

- Yeah, and so to anneal, we are just going to soften the metal.

So I'm gonna light this torch up.

(torch sizzling) We're gonna bring it up to a nice kinda dull red.

- Okay.

- And so it makes this copper malleable.

And if you wanna learn a little science here, we're really realigning the crystal structure inside of the metal.

When you hammer, or you roll, or you work on non-ferrous metals like this, it can get really, really stiff, and it's just those molecules all like scattering.

And when you soften it, they all line up straight and you can roll an impression, you could hammer texture in here.

You wanna try this one for me?

- Sure.

- I'm gonna go ahead and quench this one in the water and make a little sizzle.

Okay, we'll leave that there.

And so just hold your torch a little higher, keep your blue cone off.

- Okay.

- There you go, that's the hottest part of the flame is right after that blue cone.

- Right at the point, I guess.

- Yup.

So you'll see the copper kinda go through different colors, it'll look really pretty and rainbow.

But don't stop there, you wanna go until it's dark and oxidized, and has a dull glow, and then you know it's soft.

That's lookin' pretty good.

- Alright, so I'm just gonna shut the torch off?

- Yup.

And grab those tongs.

(copper sizzling) - Try not to take too much grit with me outta the tray there.

- (laughing) Very nice.

- Alright.

- Matt, we softened the metal by annealing.

- Yes!

Okay- - Got that one.

- So this metal is prepped and ready for design.

I've got my fancy design here that I made- - So I probably won't get quite that ornate with mine, but- - That's okay, that's okay.

So you can achieve this with wire, which is what I think works really great, by taking a piece of packing tape and tape it to the metal sticky side up.

- So that's more or less what I was thinking, I think I'm pretty close.

- As long as they're partially stuck because we're gonna sandwich it now, and you just put this right on top of here.

Pick that up, and we'll go to the rolling mill and make your impression.

(copper crunching) Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Whoo!

That looks good!

- There it is.

- Okay, what we have to do now is put flux on here to protect the metal from oxidizing.

We wanna brush it on, try to get it into all these grooves.

You can just put that higher now, mm-hmm.

(torch blowing) (torch blowing continues) - Ooh, that's a good one.

- I think that one might've taken.

- Hey!

Good job!

- Well, we have yet to see.

(Matt and Kelly laughing) (copper sizzling) Cool.

- We're not probably real thrilled with the way the design looks right now.

- Yeah, our lines are a little muddy, I'd say.

- This is the important step.

So first, safety glasses, very important.

This creates quite a bit of dust.

In the past, I've had to sweep the copper dust away, so that's why we're gonna wear our dust masks, protect our eyes.

And we do this on a steel block so that it sucks the heat out of the copper 'cause copper is very conductive, right?

- Exactly.

- So I'm gonna hold it down tightly, and be straight up and down, and start with my foot pedal.

(sander buzzing) I like to keep it moving so I don't accidentally create a new indent, right?

- Okay.

- I'm just gonna move it a bit, but I'm gonna do the whole thing.

- Okay.

- You wanna give it a try?

- Let's give it a try.

(sander buzzing) (copper squeaking) - Whew!

- Well, we could spend quite a bit of time on that for sure.

- Ugh, you're not telling me anything I don't already know.

- (laughing) No, no.

(Kelly laughing) - So you get the idea though, it's just a... You know, I got... We both got a little bit revealed.

- Mm-hmm.

- So we just go through the different grits until ya get it as shiny as you want.

I usually finish up with a piece of steel wool, and that way it's totally clean and grease free.

And then, I like to use liver of sulfur.

I use a gel in a warm bath of water and I just place it in there, and it gives it a really nice contrasting patina.

- It gets the copper nice and dark, and brings out the color and the silver.

- Yeah.

Usually, the copper won't take the patina, but sometimes it will.

And if it does, I'll just outline this with a Sharpie.

- Okay.

- A black Sharpie marker, and then put it as a patina.

- Just kind of to resist the etch?

- Yup, exactly.

- Okay, I see.

- And the last step is I use a little bit of paste wax over my design.

And I've got one over here finished, if you wanna see?

- Yeah, please.

- Here it is.

- So this is the design that we've been workin' on here.

- Yeah.

- You can kinda see.

- Can you tell?

- Yeah.

- A little bit.

- That's pretty cool.

(Kelly laughing) You went ahead and cut it out and everything.

- Yeah, so- - That looks really nice.

- It could be a little pendant, or you know, turn it into some jewelry.

- Awesome.

- So overall, it's a good technique.

- Very cool.

Well Kelly, thank you so much for showin' me a really cool technique today and spendin' some time with us.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you for having me.

I enjoyed working with you, it was awesome.

(static crackling) - I think I've been a maker since birth.

I really have always been a crafty child.

My mom has given me things that I've made, like little books that I made out of cereal boxes and wallpaper and stuff like that when I was like six or seven.

So I really don't know that there's ever been a time in my life that I can recall where I wasn't making something.

I don't know how to not make stuff, (laughing) I've just been doing it forever.

(upbeat rhythmic music) The Craft Lab started when I took over my dad's hardware store in 2007.

And within six months of the taking over the store, we decided to put in some scrapbooking stuff.

And it started in a little bitty corner of the store with just a few shelves, and it just kinda progressed from there.

And in 2015, we sold all the hardware and completely gutted the store and made it 100% craft store.

We sell mainly paper crafting materials.

We have gone a little bit further into some mixed media.

Mainly paper, and dyes, and inks, and stamps, and stencils, lots of stencils, some paints, embossing powders, just about anything paper crafting related.

Lots of scrapbooking paper and scrapbook page protectors and items like that.

And a lot of times, I just listen to my customers, you know, "What do you guys want?"

And we try to bring it in.

I think I'm gonna lace mine with the twine.

One of my favorite sayings is that somebody says, "Oh, I could never do that," I'm like, "Did you pass kindergarten?"

Because if you can cut and paste, you can do anything that we're doing here.

Because you know, it's just paper.

We're just cutting paper up and gluin' it back together.

It's not rocket surgery.

(laughing) You know, it's very easy to do.

And we teach everybody how, that doesn't know how to use the machines, we teach them how to use the machines.

Anything they wanna learn, we share our knowledge.

And if we don't know the answer, we will discover it together.

- That's why I come here truthfully is for the people.v - We call this our girls day / night out, and we do this every Friday, and it's just an opportunity for people to work on their projects and just have comradery with other crafters.

We do a lotta crafting by committee.

You know, when you're working on a project, and you're like, "Hey," holding up, "Does this piece of paper go, or that one?"

you know?

So we do a lot of sharing, and giggling, (laughing) and working on our craft projects.

We also do monthly shoebox card swaps.

And the way that works is each person participating signs up the month prior, and they create one card as a sample and then a kit for each person that is participating.

And then we meet on the second Tuesday of the month, and we put each other's cards together.

My card for Tuesday, I've got a dye cut and I've got a mat for the dye cut, and then I've got a background piece of paper and a card base.

That's a very simple card.

Some cards are a little bit more intricate, have special fun folds that make things pop out.

So it really just depends, we don't set a theme so everybody just makes what they want.

You could have a birthday card, a sympathy card, really sometimes it's just a just because.

And a lot of times, we will even make our cards without a sentiment inside and just make them blank.

And then you could customize them when you get ready to use them.

Typically, the basic pieces are your card base that you usually wanna use something fairly sturdy.

We use like 130-pound card stock.

It gives you a nice sturdy base to hold anything you might wanna put on it.

Some people will do a card front that they put on top of that that just gives it added structural integrity.

We do layer a lotta layering and matting of your design.

So you stamp an image and you color it, and then you may have a mat to accent it.

And then of course we have to add bling.

We've got glitter glue and sequins, and all kinds of fun things to... You know, rhinestones.

You know, we always have to have some bling.

It's not a proper card if it doesn't have bling.

Right now, most of the classes that are listed out there are free.

Now our girls night out, we do charge $10, and you get 10% off of your purchases while you're here crafting.

You also get full use of our tools, so we have a whole bunch of tools that are available for use by people when they come in.

We have a whole wall of stamps from my collection that I share with my customers.

And the $10 just helps us recoup costs for, you know, when equipment breaks, if we break a dye cutter, or if we need to buy some new stamps, or things like that.

We do ask people to bring their own inks, or they can purchase 'em from us, which we would love.

(Amy laughing) But we do have a big variety of things that people can use.

I have a bunch of embossing folders and older dyes that people are welcome to use while they're here crafting.

So we try to provide quite an extensive toy box for people to play in.

(laughing) You know, we wanna be here for a long time.

And as long as people continue to come and shop and support us, we'll be here.

(upbeat rhythmic music fading) - I'd like to thank Kelly, everyone here at Craft Alliance, and all of our other makers for sharing their time with us.

unfortunatley, thats all the time we have for this week, but we hope all of our makers have inspired you to unlock your creative spirit.

We thank you all for watching and we hope you'll join us here next time to see what we'll be making.

More information is available on social media or online @kmos.org.

(gentle upbeat music) This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle upbeat music continues)