I’m fortunate to live in a city that now eclipses Murano Island in Italy as the place for glass blowing. This is due partly because we have one of the most famous glass blowers, Dale Chihuly, here in Seattle.
Glassblowing has always held a fascination for me. The ability to form an extremely hot blob of glass into a beautiful object by twirling, blowing, adding color and then repeating this over again until the object is exactly what is imagined mesmerizes me. I can spend hours just watching the master glass blowers do their magic.
When Groupon offered a coupon to try my hand at a lesson on glass blowing, I immediately jump on it.
Though this lesson was very short, it was fun to be able to pick out an object I wanted to help create. I had originally thought I would do some type of glass bowl but as I thought more, I wanted something for my desk at work.
I decided on a glass heart–a reminder to always keep my heart opened to all sorts of possibilities.
Blue Glass Pellets
Now that I had decided on what to create, the next stop was to pick out two colors. Of course, red would be the appropriate color but their red wasn’t a true red to my eyes. Instead, my eyes were drawn to the dark blue and white square pellets of glass.
Once the colors were picked out, I was able to step in the “hot” shop area. A glob of glass about 6 inches long and about 4 inches diameter is heated up, rolled and then molded into a rectangle on a metal table. It was at this point that the colors were pressed into this hot glob. It is then reheated several times to blend the dark blue and white pellets into the clear glob of glass.
Hot Glass Blob
The master glassblower then starts to shape it before you are allowed to blow a hollow space into your piece of glass. The heating, shaping and blowing are done several times and each time, the glass is slowly molded into the desired heart shape.
Blowing Glass
Almost done
My Blue Heart
After the heart shape is achieved, it is then mounted to a base and cured for two days.