4.19.2007
GLORY
I spent this week in Austin and Waco for Southern Living Magazine. Along the way, I snapped a few photos of the profile subjects. Outside Waco towards West, Texas - they say, "We are north of Waco and South of West," and they love it - the Stanton family makes glass, quite fine stained glass windows and ceiling adornments. One son, Jordan, 16, is a glassblower, or what's technically termed a gaffer. He's pretty good, and will, I predict, be a Texas master one day soon. He demonstrated his craft for an hour Tuesday. Rain fell lightly on the sheet metal roof, and the 3,000 degree furnace heat made a cloud of warmth in the open air workspace. Watching Jordan and his assistant Josh made me think of a honeybee farm.
Jordan preheated his blowpipe, a long metal rod hollowed out to allow for the actual "blowing," and dipped the pipe into the furnace, where ground silica had become molten glass. The material is gel-like in appearance, stuff Terminator's nemesis in T2 consisted of when he changed shape. Once the glass hit the open air - "gathered" they say - Jordan spun his blowpipe on a steel rack slowly, rolling the pipe back and forth to counter gravity's shaping of the quickly cooling hot glass. At this point, the actual blowing takes place, ever so slightly, with this Indian reverence to craft. Little is spoken. And a small bubble rises inside the gathered glass.
The next part, which I've shown in the image, places the glass back into the brick box of fire known in glass circles as the "Glory Hole." Jordan rotated the glass inside this second phase of heating very carefully, letting the molecules expand beyond the boundaries of a solid and daring them towards that of flowing form.
Modern glassblowing, as an artist's form, began in studios in the early sixties. But, fire as a tool has been around as long as recorded history. During my glassblowing day, I noticed and contemplated, while watching Jordan and Josh with their glass, the impact of fire, how the flame changes things, how it reshapes, and how carefully that process happens when undertaken by a craftsman. The heat. The fire. Burning. I've never really understood a forest expert's usage of burning acres and acres - a controlled scorching - something the say helps land, the clearing of underbrush allowing trees to grow. I understood fire as destructive, something that caused alarm and panic and scarring. But the glassblower associates fire with glory. It was a very beautiful process, watching form an elevated view, seeing the whole of it, the material, the flames, the maker.
I spent this week in Austin and Waco for Southern Living Magazine. Along the way, I snapped a few photos of the profile subjects. Outside Waco towards West, Texas - they say, "We are north of Waco and South of West," and they love it - the Stanton family makes glass, quite fine stained glass windows and ceiling adornments. One son, Jordan, 16, is a glassblower, or what's technically termed a gaffer. He's pretty good, and will, I predict, be a Texas master one day soon. He demonstrated his craft for an hour Tuesday. Rain fell lightly on the sheet metal roof, and the 3,000 degree furnace heat made a cloud of warmth in the open air workspace. Watching Jordan and his assistant Josh made me think of a honeybee farm.
Jordan preheated his blowpipe, a long metal rod hollowed out to allow for the actual "blowing," and dipped the pipe into the furnace, where ground silica had become molten glass. The material is gel-like in appearance, stuff Terminator's nemesis in T2 consisted of when he changed shape. Once the glass hit the open air - "gathered" they say - Jordan spun his blowpipe on a steel rack slowly, rolling the pipe back and forth to counter gravity's shaping of the quickly cooling hot glass. At this point, the actual blowing takes place, ever so slightly, with this Indian reverence to craft. Little is spoken. And a small bubble rises inside the gathered glass.
The next part, which I've shown in the image, places the glass back into the brick box of fire known in glass circles as the "Glory Hole." Jordan rotated the glass inside this second phase of heating very carefully, letting the molecules expand beyond the boundaries of a solid and daring them towards that of flowing form.
Modern glassblowing, as an artist's form, began in studios in the early sixties. But, fire as a tool has been around as long as recorded history. During my glassblowing day, I noticed and contemplated, while watching Jordan and Josh with their glass, the impact of fire, how the flame changes things, how it reshapes, and how carefully that process happens when undertaken by a craftsman. The heat. The fire. Burning. I've never really understood a forest expert's usage of burning acres and acres - a controlled scorching - something the say helps land, the clearing of underbrush allowing trees to grow. I understood fire as destructive, something that caused alarm and panic and scarring. But the glassblower associates fire with glory. It was a very beautiful process, watching form an elevated view, seeing the whole of it, the material, the flames, the maker.
posted by TB at 12:04
