Glassblowing

    Going to the Chihuly Garden & Glass Museum has been one of the highlights of the year of for me.  I was absolutely glassblown away by some of the things I saw there.  There are beautiful, colorful, intricate "sculptures" of a lot of different things, such as (what I interpret to be) octopus chandeliers, boats of marbles, candy-coated flowers and jewel-encrusted trees.  I also recall a chess piece trapped inside a transparent ceiling, lol.  Naturally, this overwhelming display of wonder got me thinking about the process behind creating these works, so I became interested in taking lessons on the craft.  There is a class in Seattle, but the cost is in excess of $500 and there are different levels, meaning the total curriculum would exceed 2 grand.  So, I just settled on doing some research.

    Professional glassblowers do their work inside what's called a hot shop.  It's very similar to a sculptor's studio, except instead of a foundry they use furnaces.  Glassblowers don't use molds either, they just use these long rods to blow air into the molten material at the other end.  This creates an air bubble, which can be shaped by various tools like jacks, wooden blocks, and saws.  The furnaces operate at temperatures in excess of 2200 degrees fahrenheit!  Gee, I wonder if that's why they call it a hot shop.  But the most staggering fact in the whole operation might be that they use a wet newspaper to smooth the rounded surfaces of 2000 degree molten glass.  Yes, the only thing in between their bare hands and a blazing orb of death is a washed up newspaper.  Talk about balls.