Today we visited Moon Marble in Bonner Springs to learn about how art marbles are made by hand, as well as to learn how to play the game of marbles.
Our field trip began with the kids learning how to play marbles. Our guide, Jay, did an amazing job of teaching the kids, and they all had a great time laughing and joking with him! The older kids were shown how to “knuckle down” to shoot their marble, while the younger kids were taught a “soccer kick” to move their marble into the center. Not only did he teach them how to shoot the marbles and score the points, but he introduced them to some of the lingo used in marbles, like fudging (going over the line) and histing (lifting your knuckle while shooting).
Jay setting up the marbles in the center
Learning how to “knuckle down” to shoot the marble into the center
After each kid had a chance to try their hand at shooting marbles, it was time to see how art marbles are made by hand. These marbles are not the kind that you use for games, but are instead for display in homes and museums. Their prices start in the low hundreds and can go much higher, depending upon the detail involved, the kinds of glass used, any specialty colors and so on. They are each beautiful works of art to be treasured.
Firing up the blow torch to melt the glass
Melting glass into a ball shape and adhering it to a smaller glass stick called a punty. You can tell that a marble is hand made by looking for the mark from where the marble is removed from the punty.
After lots of spinning, the glass is now quite round
Shaping the marble in a graphite mould
And now the marble is ready to have other colors added
Using a small ice pick to push in the melted colored glass dots to make swirls, lines or other patterns
Once the marble is complete, it is placed into a cooling oven. The glass is 2000* when being shaped, and the oven is a relatively cooler 950*. Still quite hot!
The workbench of the marble artist
Some beautiful and unique examples of hand-blown marbles
Thank you to Moon Marble for a wonderful field trip! Our families had a great time learning about how to play marbles, as well as watching the marble artist at work!
