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How the School of Mines is letting engineers make art

Engineers can be artists too.

Combining numbers and art doesn't make sense to most people, but Jake Ivy isn't most people.

"I get to exercise that creative side that a lot of engineers get pigeon-holed into not having," he said.

Jake is a graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines. He's also the head gaffer (or glass blower) at the school's new glass blowing studio.

It's been up and running for six months, and by spring semester next year, glass blowing will be an official class at Mines.

"It's kinda still informal, but we are scaling it up," Jake said.

As an undergraduate at a small engineering school in Missouri, Jake took his first glass blowing class. It's been a form of stress release for him ever since.

"I come in and I get to get rid of days or weeks worth of stress," he said.

Jake's advisor, Dr. Geoff Brennecka, was the one who came up with the idea to start a glass blowing program at Mines. He knew Jake had some experience and asked him if he thought it could work here.

"I said, 'yeah, totally' and he said 'cool, I'll get you the money, the funding and you pick out a shopping list' so that's what I did," Jake said.

That was two years ago. Jake taught two or three other students at a time when the furnaces first fired up. Now he's got four other people teaching two students at a time.

Once the official class gets underway next year, the school might open up the studio to the public for demonstrations.

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