Bruinsfan

I think both the final three and the ultimate winner were the right choices on the part of the judges. So much creativity and skill were on display! In terms of the overall body of work I think Morgan had the advantage, and while her installation pieces might have lacked the impressive craftsmanship of Ryan T's I think they were (considered as a whole) more powerful conceptually. I wish Ryan B., had gone earlier, like maybe even first, so I wouldn't have had to listen to him so much. Unlike Karen, his personality didn't seem to be balanced out by the actual glassblowing chops to back it up. Though I have to admit his kraken for the Dark Side challenge was as creepy as anything Morgan came up with, and arguably his best technical work.

I'm in for looking at Henry Cavill styled as a lumberjack for 2 hours, I don't need to know anything more about the movie than that.

Yeah, his technique didn't really impress me much except in the first challenge and the enlarged object one, though I thought he was conceptually strong in the pairs challenge (did John C. contribute any conceptual input to that?) and the personal fears one. Most of his work struck me as rough and amateurish looking despite the amount of work he put into it. If I were walking into his installation at the Corning Musuem unaware, I'd be looking around for a sign that unauthorized personnel should keep out while they were assembling the rest of it.

Weren't their synonyms "alive" and "well"? At any rate they chose to depict it as "Little Otik" from the Czech fairy tale about a tree stump adopted as a substitute baby that begins eating everything in sight. I thought the arrangement of the flames and peppers lent them a bit more complexity than their construction alone, and the piece was very pretty. But I can see the judges going for the more difficult, symbolic piece even if it wasn't as visually impressive. And Dan deserved to go home two challenges ago for that crap thimble, so I'm not going to mourn his string of peppers getting the axe.

I'm joining the chorus on Minhi deserving a solo win. The olive was well-crafted and appealing, but it wasn't nearly as complex a piece of sculpture as the chess knight. When execution is almost flawless in two competing pieces (and design concept isn't an issue), the win should go to the one that involved greater difficulty. Likewise, that thimble was just awful. While I wasn't thrilled by the die's execution, it was done in a fraction of the allowed time due to the breakage and was still clearly a depiction of the object it was based upon, not some random object salvaged from a junkyard.

I really liked how supportive Kat and Nao were of each other. Really, everyone seemed to get along well, and there was no one to root against. I agreed pretty well with all the winning selections this time around, but most of the other artists' work was good enough that I wouldn't have been outraged to see them win instead. Nao in particular struck me as a close second in the competitions she didn't win; the judges had some tough choices to make.

Chris was like the living embodiment of that line from The Good Place: "I took the form of a 45-year-old white man for a reason. I can only fail up." SO glad to see the last of him. Kat's piece was pretty simple in concept, but I did think her execution was nice. All the random drips of glass coming together to form a coherent whole was like a glassblowing version of pointillism. Elliot's piece really deserved the win though. I loved that while it did have a small, stylized flame, it was mostly potential prompting viewers to imagine the much more extensive ignition once the candle flame burns down to the pool of oil.

I have to step back and say that Chris' piece would have hit me a lot harder and seemed much more profound if it wasn't from someone I despise who's already milked a dead relative for sympathy. (What's next? A clear toilet sculpture with the goldfish he had to flush as a child visible inside?) I still think Cat should have won. Hers was an intricate, multi-layered design that both spoke to her greatest challenge and taught others what seeing the world through her eyes is like.

I believe that they cool the thin connection to the punty with water so that it hardens and breaks at that point when they knock on the rod.

Yeah, on that front I think Nao, Cat, and Chris all fit the brief by giving us cautionary tales. I know that plastic-y looking fast food made me think twice about my next burger or pizza! (Though the fries had the opposite of the intended effect on me as well, ElectricBoogaloo.) Elliot deserved his win, but I wouldn't have been upset if Mike had been chosen instead. Both pieces were beautiful and fully embodied the challenge.

Also a latecomer thanks to the debut of the 4th season—I was completely unaware of this series and love it. Glassblowing is so neat! I see we are unanimous in our outrage over Chris being kept rather than Jason. I wonder if this smug twatwaffle faced any professional or personal backlash over his appearances on the show? Just how big is he in the world of glassblowing? Cat knocked it out of the park on this one, her angry vacuum cleaner had as much personality as a professional animator's cartoon character. Brad's toon was also inspired and well-executed, if a clear second to Cat's imho.

Brad did a good job of salvaging his piece. The finished product was one of my favorites. I really liked Nao's piece, it was both beautiful and meaningful. Though I think Elliot's was the clear winner. I was willing to see how Teigan's piece turned out—I think there's too much of a knee-jerk reaction against concepts that are cute or upbeat in the Art world. But her execution would have been bad for a college student just starting out. Chris really showed his ass in being so proud of that unimpressive bit of work. The coffee rings idea was interesting, but there was no there there for the major element.

Deborah was off-putting to me at first, but I found myself warming up to her as the series progressed. And I thought she always came up with interesting and creative ideas, even if her technical proficiency sometimes fell short of Janusz's and Alexander's. I was rooting for her to win over the last three episodes.

I think that dark hand color could have been balanced out if Janusz had made the blanket base a bold red or blue to balance it out rather than white with thin traces of other colors, and introduced some folds/bulges rather than having it be flat. Alexander's idea was nice in theory, but you'd have to spin the piece fast enough to get a flickering double image of the two sets of lungs for it to really work. Could make a nice installation piece as a sped up video rather than being physically present. Deborah's really was the best response to the challenge. I wasn't bothered by the oversized gum—it's not as if real feet are transparent either, but no one complained about that.

I agreed with the decision on this one, I felt that Deborah's and Patrick's piece had more artistic merit both in the symbolism and the technical skills involved in producing it.