Evidence exists that the art of glass blowing has been utilized since approximately 200 BC. Originally this art provided a means of producing containers which would hold and transport liquid contents. Today the art of glass blowing has become one of the fastest growing hobbies and produces amazing works of fine art and craft projects. Through private instruction, college courses, art studios and glass studios, people are learning to manipulate glass and achieve remarkable results. Glass blowers create any number of items ranging from glass beads for jewelry to statuettes, vases, hanging globes, ornaments, lampshades, champagne flutes and stained glass windows.
More than two thousand years ago, it was discovered how to make and melt glass and shortly later how to make a hole in the hot molten glass and blow puffs of air through a pipe into the hole to shape the glass. The Romans loved the glass vases and items that became available for rich and poor alike. The craft grew and spread across the nations. Glass proved able to be easily made, manipulated and formed for a variety of purposes and items.
The processes were much the same then as they are now. Glass blowing is the art of blowing breaths of air through a blowpipe into a hole in a ball of hot molten glass, then manipulating that ball of glass with alternating varying breaths of air and heat. Glass for blowing comes in sticks available in a wide range of diameters called canes. If preferred glass can be made with a combination of quartz sand (silica), lime, potash and soda ash, adding heavy metal oxides for color. The combination and ratios are specific dependent upon the different types of glass, – Crystal, leaded glass, Pyrex (borosilicate). The glass is melted in a furnace or a kiln. The temperature needed for making glass is much higher than the temperature needed for manipulating pre-made glass canes. To actually make glass, ovens must reach 2000 degrees Fahrenheit or 1100 degrees Centigrade. Most manipulating of glass is done with oven temperatures ranging 1600 – 1900 degrees Fahrenheit or 870 – 1040 degrees Centigrade.
Three furnaces are used during the process of glass blowing. The first furnace, the kiln, is used for actually making glass or to heat the canes to a molten state. The glory hole is the second furnace, which is used to reheat pieces between times of working and manipulating them. A final furnace, called the annealer or ‘lehr’ is used to cool the final products slowly and without causing stress to the glass.
Once the canes have melted or the glass has been made and a molten state of a very pliable softness achieved, the blowpipe tip is placed in the oven and heated and then into the molten glass where it accumulates a ball of glass on the end. The glass ball is then rolled onto a marver where the glass blower blows a breath of air into the blowpipe to form a parison or bubble in the glass. It is through this bubble that the glass is manipulated with the glass blower’s breathes and applied torch heat. (A glass blower always wears safety glasses when working) Sometimes for a larger piece of art, the glass blower blows and creates two or three holes above, beside or in the original hole for manipulating the glass. When the manipulation process is ending and the project almost done, the glass piece is placed on a bench punty for the glass blower to finish the top of the piece. Once the top is finished the piece is then placed back into an oven, the lehr, to cool down.
This art, this delicate craft which requires infinite patience to practice, is taught around the world in schools, colleges, art studios, glass studios, company apprenticeship programs and with private instruction in private studios. Some glass blowers spend as long as 10 years in an apprenticeship before achieving the title of “Master” glass blower. In the United States there is no particular testing to achieve master, while in several places in Europe there is required testing to become a ‘master glass blower’.
As the art has grown in popularity and the pieces created have grown in creativity, designs and styles, the demand for glass blown items has increased as well. Glass beads for today’s jewelry designers and producers has become a major field for glass blowing. Hanging globes, ornaments, animal figurines, statuettes, champagne flutes, wine goblets, some stain glass windows and even restoration of damaged porcelain and ceramics are hand made and personally blown by a glass blower somewhere. Different parts of the world, different cultures, different artists have their own specific styles, colors, designs and trademarks visible in the magnificent glass creations made available today through the practice of this ancient form of craftsmanship.