Jayce Abens, fingers working to spin a 5-foot metal pipe, gathers molten glass from the orange-hot tank furnace in the studio of Iowa State’s glassblowing club, the Gaffer’s Guild.
“You can see the honey consistency,” Abens says as he holds up the glowing lump at the end of the pipe. Then he works the soft glass, rolling it across a steel table called a marver, smoothing, shaping, and cooling the lump into what will become a curvy vase.
Working with glass is “a combination of science and engineering and art,” says Abens, a senior mechanical engineering and MBA student from Webster City, Iowa. “It’s a cool outlet outside of engineering to be creative.”
Growing and Thriving
The Gaffer’s Guild has been on campus since 1972. Its humble and homemade history includes blowing glass outdoors and in two now-demolished buildings, the Engineering Annex and Old Sweeney Hall. The club was without a home and furnace for about five years until fall 2020 when it relocated to just inside the west doors of the Student Innovation Center. The orange glow from the professional-grade furnaces can be seen from the street through the studio’s windows.
“We’re back,” says Steve Martin, a University Professor, an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, and the Gaffer’s Guild adviser. “This is a world-class facility.”
Students can access the facility for $120 per semester and completion of a beginner’s class. (The club is also open to faculty, staff, and community members who pay a higher fee.)
“We train them for six to seven weeks, and then give them the keys to the car,” Martin says. “They can come in with a buddy and blow glass.”
Glass That Gives and Gives Back
Alumni say the club has influenced careers, taught leadership, and encouraged service. Some return to teach workshops and help around the studio.
Randilynn Christensen, who has undergraduate degrees in music and physics (’07) and a doctorate in materials science and engineering (’12), says glass and the Gaffer’s Guild has “fundamentally altered my life.”
She learned about the club her junior year when she stopped at a craft sale in the Memorial Union. She had made pottery in high school and “wanted to do something with fire and glass.”
“Wow, we have a glassblowing club,” she remembers thinking. “This is my dream.”
She joined, soon became treasurer and made regular reports to Martin. When she was struggling to find a graduate program in physics, Martin encouraged her to try engineering and invited her to join his research group and study glassy materials to develop better batteries. She now works for 3M in Minneapolis, where she manages projects that use artificial intelligence tools for materials development.
She’s still a hobbyist — she’s helped lead a nonprofit glass arts studio — but mostly works with stained glass these days.
Keith Kutz, who has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geology (’83, ’87) and now works on campus as a grants administrator, discovered the club during a campus demonstration in 1997.
Now he helps keep the studio running and encourages students to give back by making presentations to children on field trips or by creating special pieces as university awards.
His point of pride about the Gaffer’s Guild?
“This has been a student-run club for almost 53 years now,” he says. “For us to not only survive, but actually thrive and grow, is a testament to the art form itself and to the innovation of our students. They’re pushing the envelope here.”