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06 The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, August 25, 1977
Resident glassblower
In Venable, Rishel fashions tools of research
out of glass tubing, years of skill and luck
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By SARA BULLARD
Features Editor
Depending on the time of day and the
amount of light, Venable Hall can be a
strange place. The UNC building is old and
filled with antiquated chemistry labs, used
primarily for teaching now that Kenan labs
w ere built to house most chemiscal research.
But that research depends largely on the
work that goes on in room 15-2 Venable. Jim
Rishel has no formal training in science, but
the certificate on his wall says he is a
scientific glassblower, a member of the
American Scientific Glassblower's Society,
and one of the few of his profession in the
state.
Not much about him seems scientific. He
could be a sailor, with his tall muscular
build, wavy dark hair and a pipe gripped
firmly in hand. He's soft spoken but not
reticent or shy. His Yankee accent and dry
Yankee wit haven't quite worn off after 13
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Staff photo by L C Bcrbour
Jim Rishel blows, cuts, drills and polishes the glass instruments of chemical
research. But sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what it is he's making. Above, he
works on a piece to be used for distillation.
Students more campus-oriented than professors
By DAV ID STACKS
Staff Writer
Students are less familiar with areas in
Chapel Hill away from campus than their
professors are, according to a survey
conducted by a UNC graduate student in
geography.
"Students are more University-oriented
because they spend more time on campus,"
said Jan Brenner, who polled 50 students
and 50 faculty members during spring
semester, 1977.
"Faculty members are involved in more
community activities like the garden club,
the golf course and the school their kids go
to," Brenner said.
Brenner said her survey showed many
people do not know the proper names of
common places on campus, such as Polk
Place and McCorkle Place.
Polk is the quadrant between Wilson
Library and South Building. The McCorkle
quad extends from South Building to
Franklin Street and includes the Davie
Poplar and Silent Sam.
The most attractive places among both
students and faculty are the Botanical
Garden, Coker Arboretum, Gimghoul
Castle, McCorkle Place and the Blue Cross
and Blue Shield headquarters.
Shop the Junior
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CHAPEL HILL, N. C.
University Mall
10-9 Mon Sat
Featuring
Handmade Items from over 300 Consigners
B Pawley's Island Hammocks B Quilts
B Poncho Shawls, Afghans B Toys
B Wood craft B Baby Gifts and Clothes
B Bread Dough Items B Pottery
B Chapel Hill Cookbooks B Spiced Tea
Operated by the Junior Service League
All proceeds go to c harities.
years in the South.
HE LEANS on a stool before a constant
blue flame that jets out from a metal spout.
He cranes his neck around several times to
light the pipe from the torch. The table in
front of him is jammed with broken flasks,
tiny coiled-glass condensers, glass vials and
other odd-looking artifacts of chemistry.
This is Rishel's job to repair, build or
modify the glass instruments of science.
He admits he doesn't know much about
chemistry, "but then they don't know much
about this end of it either."
It's like we're in two different worlds," the
glass maker says of the scientists. "They just
come down here with a piece and tell me
what they want done, and if it can be done,
we do it.
"Like this item right here." He points to a
bulky arrangement of tubes, valves and
wires. "That's a lamp" (which is the last thing
it looks like). "This fellow brought it down
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Students and faculty differed on second
and third choices of their favorite places,
however. Among the faculty, 12 per cent
said the BotanicalGarden appealed to them.
McCorkle Place and the Chapel Hill Public
Library followed with eight per cent each.
In the student population, 18 per cent
preferred to be in the Arboretum more than
anywhere else on campus. McCorkle Place
polled 10 per cent while the Bell Tower and
Forest Theatre followed with eight per cent
each.
Brenner said the survey showed people
prefer to be in areas used for recreational
purposes and where there are few man-made
developments such as houses and highways.
"Most people cited 'naturalness' as their
reason for choosing one area over another,"
said Brenner, who plans to use the survey
results in her master's thesis.
She said her study is important because
urban planners would know what
environments appeal to people when they
plan cities' growth and development
patterns.
"Everyone carries an image of the
environment in his mind," Brenner said.
"Urban planners are becoming more aware
of how people feel about their
surroundings."
The least attractive places in Chapel Hill
Service League's
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and said that he needed these wires coming
through this side." Rishel picks up the lamp
and describes how he sealed the wires into
the glass.
"Pyrex is the main kind of glass that we
use," he says, "but we also have quartz,
uranium and cobalt glass for sealing."
Different grades of glass are used, depending
on what is to be sealed, in order to lessen
strain and maintain airtightness.
Rishel lays down the conglomeration and
says, "That's one kind of thing we do, but
they're always coming in with different
problems, because they're all working on
different research projects. A lot of it's trial
and error, but after a while, you get an idea
of what can be done and what can't."
IT'S AN t'Nl'Sl'AL job for a glass
blower, but one only a glass blower can do.
"I don't know how many of us there are in
the country, maybe 500 or so, but there are
only five or six in the state."
Once classified as a blue-collar trade,
glassblowing is now recognized by the
government as a profession, and according
to R ishel's coworker and supervisor, Elwood
Schulz, Rishel is at the top of this profession.
"He's an all-round journeyman, who can
handle anything for the simplest projects of
undergraduates to the most intricate items
for electronic research."
Rishel learned the trade at a vocational
and technical institute in Salem, N.J., near
the farm where he grew up. After a year of
learning the basics of the art, he spent three
years in nearby Vineland, N.J., before
moving to North Carolina.
Rishel's large metal work table looks as if
it contains the results of his 13 years of
cutting, polishing, blowing, drilling and
sealing glass at UNC.
Amid the rubble hidden underneath the
tubes and tools are fragments of a glass bird's
wings. Rishel shrugs, "Oh, that's just part of
an eagle I was working on," and admits that
scientific glass blowing isn't the only kind of
glass blowing he does. "Yeah, 1 do the
novelties too," he says. "It's not my main
business. It's just something every glass
blower does." He walks over to a case on the
far wall of the shop. "1 did all of those." He
points to a menagerie of glass horses, birds
and ornaments.
ONE FIGURE stands out above the
rest a hollow unicorn with a very elaborate
mane and tail and one foot raised. "That one
turned out okay," he decides with the tone of
a judge reviewing the entries in a contest.
The unicorn, he explains, was done for a
doctor who gave him a picture of the animal
and said he wanted one like it. He worked on
the unicorn for four hours and had it
mounted on a trophy for the doctor. The one
on the shelf he made for himself. "That's the
worst one. I gave the good one away."
"1 just dabble at it now and again," Rishel
says of the artistic side of glassblowing. "I'm
kinda proud of that unicorn, but there are
fellows who can put me in the shade, if you
know what I'm saying."
"1 mean, I've seen Cinderella figures with
the horse and carriage and everything." He
pauses for emphasis. "I mean like this big!"
among both students and faculty are
Eastgate Shopping Center, Glen Lennox
Shopping Center and the Chapel Hill
Municipal Building.
The most popular church in terms of
physical appearance among both groups was
the Chapel of the Cross, while Mason Farm
and Eastwood Lake were popular recreation
areas. Favorite residential areas included
Lake Forest and Westwood.
Some places in Chapel Hill were not as
well known as others, the survey reported.
Few people were familiar with Cobb
Terrace, Tenney Circle or the old law school
office.
Cobb Terrace and Tenney Circle are
residential areas. The old law school office is
on Franklin Street across from the
President's residence.
Programs are available for freshmen through graduates, including law
students. Called the Platoon Leaders Class (PLC), the program offers a
number of unusual benefits to men already in college or who intend to
start college. Here areafewoftheprogram'sfeaturesavailabletomen
who can qualify:
The PLC gives you $100.00 a month for the nine
month academic year. It's like a S9O0.0O-a-year
scholarship. And you can continue to receive the
financial aid up to three school years.
All drills and special training take place during the
summer months. During the regular school year,
there is no interference with your academic work.
You attend classes without wearing a uniform. And
you get paid for the training sessions you attend
during the summer.
And, best of all, as a Marine PLC Officer, when you graduate from
college, you will be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S.
Marine Corps.
Call collect at 919-755-4174
Ask for Captains Ron Burton or Cook Florence
The Marines are looking for
a few good men to lead.
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A professional scientific glassblower, Rishel has been at UNC all work together on a design sometimes it works,
for13years.Therearenosetmethodstohiswork,hesays."We sometimes it doesn't."
he says excitedly, arms outstretched. "All in
glass. Beautiful. Just beautiful."
Rishel points out a glass merry-go-round
on the work table. Hundreds of fine strands
of ornately knitted glass threads adorn the
top of the carousel, and four small
dachsunds are attached. Rishel gives the
canopy of glass a light tap and watches it
whirl silently. Chuckling softly, he says,
"This one's just sitting here getting ripe. A
friend of mine made it down here in about 25
minutes. I thought I'd look it over and try to
do one later. I can do ail of it except that fine
knitting on top."
A STUDENT ASSISTANT, "Hoppy"
Cassidy, who Rishel jokingly says "can't do
much in the way of making anything but
loves to break things up," prods the master
into demonstrating his talents. After a little
coaxing and aw-shucks modesty, Rishel
walks slowly over to a wall filled with shelves
of glass tubing ranging from two to 178
millimeters in diameter.
He draws one tube with a diameter a little
bigger than a toilet-paper roll and another
very small one. Coming back to the work
table he slides on a pair of red-tinted
protective glasses and lays down his pipe. He
adjusts the valve on the metal spout of the
torch, and the soft blue flame becomes a
gushing fire. In five minutes the glass tubing
becomes a swan.
Occasionally looking up as he works,
Rishel explains that "everything starts from
tubing of some sort." Getting a piece to come
out right, he says, is "all in even heating and
even turning." He demonstrates by turning
the flame up to where it gives off a bright
blaze and a sound like running water and
heats one small section of the larger tube,
turning quickly and constantly. Part of the
glass is hidden inside the flame, and as the
The survey also showed that 80 per cent of
the students do not intend to remain in
Chapel Hill longer than it takes them to
complete their studies, while 88 per cent of
the faculty plan to stay indefinitely.
Brenner said her survey implies that
having a car does not seem to be a
prerequisite to being familiar with the area.
She conceded that not inquiring if people
. had personal automobiles in Chapel Hill is a
loophole in her survey, but she said most
people responded that bicycles and buses are
adequate transportation within the city
limits.
Brenner said she restricted her survey to
seniors, graduate students and faculty
members who have lived in Chapel Hill
between three and seven years. She selected
her sample at random from the campus
telephone directory.
glass becomes softer, it looks as if the two
ends of the tube are broken apart, and
moving independently of each other, Rishel
draws the tube out of the fire and blows
gently through one end. Like a child's soap
bubble, the heated section of the tube
bellows out into a perfect sphere.
HE HANDLES the hot glass with a
monstrous glove that doesn't look like it
should be used to handle anything so
delicate. He lays the finished swan casually
on the table.
A bright-eyed balding man strolls in and
takes a seat at another work table, leans back
and smokes a cigarette. He's a machinist
from one of the other basement shops. "Hey
Jim," he teases, I've been coming around
here for years. How come I never got a
swan?"
Rishel winks without turning toward the
machinist. "You don't have the right smile."
Rishel shyly explains that the swan really
didn't turn out just like he wanted it to, that it
isn't very good. Despite protests that it is
truly a lpvely creature, Rishel shrugs away
the praise. With a crooked child-like grin he
says, "You see, I'm not like Slick here,"
pointing to the machinist. "He's a ham for
that sort of thing."
Rishel tries not to emphasize the artistic
side of his work. The novelty items, "catch
your eye," he says, but they're more of a
hobby than anything else.
THE WORK for chemical research is a lot
tougher than creating glass novelty items, he
says, but it's also what he does best. "I'm by
no means at the top, but I don't have to take
second place to too many people."
Rishel stays busy in the glass shop, but he
also manages to find the time to hunt and
build his own home. Among several photos
on the office wall of Rishel blowing glass,
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Stiff pftoto by L C Barbour
there are pictures of Rishel carrying an
unwieldy antelope over his shoulders, Rishel
with a cowboy hat and gun, Rishel
hammering away on the frame of an
unfinished house and Rishel's wife and two
kids.
H e talks casually about the other things he
does. His father got him started hunting
when he was growing up on a New Jersey
farm. Now he goes all the way to Wyoming
on vacation just to hunt for deer and
antelope, or "just to sit," he says, "just to kick
my feet in the dirt and not have anyone to
answer to."
The relaxation and solitude is a part of
hunting, he says.
RISHEL IS also building his own home in
his spare time, using whatever extra money
he can come up with. Two years ago, he says,
"I decided I wanted a new house, and the
only way I was going to get it was to build it
myself."
Rishel had no special knowledge of
construction when he started besides helping
a friend build his own home. "But, you
know, if you set your mind to it that you can
do it, that's half of it, right? I just said 'I'll do
it.' "
It may seem like an odd combination of
activities, but Rishel explains that
glassblowing, being raised on a farm and
construction are all related. Being in here,"
he gestures to the glass shop, "teaches you to
think. It helps you out, sets you up for these
other things, like building the house."
He slides slowly into a wooden swivel
chair, and leans back puffing on his pipe and
gazing at the photos on the wall.
"I've learned a lot from all of this the
house and everything. But the work I do in
this shop is more important than, all that. If I
had to, I'd trade everything else for this."
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