The Glass

The main ingredient of glass is sand. We add soda, ash and limestone, all binding agents, which also helps lower the melting temperature. We buy our glass melted once so when we get it, it's these little glass cubes. We take these little nuggets and throw them into a ceramic pot. The melting temperature is 2,400 degrees, so it takes a few days to get the glass up to the right temperature.

The Process

It starts with a design. It's important to design things out and to have all of your tools ready so you can think about the direction you're going, and you don't waste any time. Sometimes we draw designs on the floor in chalk so the assistant knows exactly what to expect. The moment you sit down at the bench, you have to know which tool to grab for the job in the moment so you can complete each step and move on to the next. With glass, the less you touch it and the more intentional you are, the more successful you will be. A master is someone who knows exactly what steps to take from the moment the glass comes out of the furnace. A true master can make the process look easy, and a finished piece look flawless. 

Making a Mug

When you first take some glass from the furnace, it's still in a liquid state. We work with temperatures at around 2,100 degrees when we shape the glass. To make something hollow like a mug, you scoop out about one cup measure of glass. Then you take the blow pipe, and you scoop the glass onto it and begin the process. The end of the blow pipe is heated so the glass will stick. Once the glass is stuck on the pipe, it's time to shape it. 

Shaping the Glass

For shaping, we use a variety of hand tools. We’ve got metal tools and some wooden tools called blocks that don't absorb heat that we use for specific shapes. We use a steel table called a marver to roll the glass on. Even gravity is considered a tool. For example, if you hold your pipe down, that stretches the glass out in a way that makes the next step possible. We use the block or the marver to help shape the glass into a rounded shape. At the bench, the assistant will blow down a hollow tube, while the master controls how the piece is blowing out. After you blow the body shape, whether it’s a barrel or cone shape, it’s time to reheat in the glory hole, and then add color.

The Glory Hole

The furnace is where the glass is kept. The glory hole is similar to the furnace, but this piece of equipment serves as a reheating chamber. The glory hole runs a little hotter, so we don't have to stand in front of it as long. You can go back to the glory hole to reheat as many times as you need to throughout the day.

Adding the Color

Colors can be stripes that wrap around, polka dots, little speckles, there are so many options. The colors look like sugar bits that you roll over and they adhere and make spots on your glass. Once you get the color on, you have to melt the color bits and the glass together because the color bits are at room temperature and your glass is at 2,100 degrees. Once you melt them together, you can really start experimenting with how you want to blow it up, and the shape you want to come to the marver with. The next step is adding the foot. We like to add a foot to our mugs to make them more stable.

Adding the Foot

If we’re going with a rosetta crimp-style foot, for example, we’ll use a solid punty rod with a glob of glass, add some color on it, and then reheat it in the glory hole. We attach this glob of glass, the foot, to the bottom of the mug. We will then cut it using a pair of diamond shears. The master at the bench will use a wooden tool first to flatten it and then some tweezers to cut the design into the piece. As the design is getting finished, the assistant will straighten the glass up to make sure the foot is completely flat for the table. Then they'll use a wooden board and jacks, or large tongs, to shape the bottom.

Making the Handle

Handles are one of the trickiest things. When you're learning how to do handles, you have to practice one after another for a while until it becomes second nature. We like to do blown handles in our studio because they make the mug a little lighter and they have a really nice feel. Blown handles also allow us to add more decorative elements without making the mug too heavy. A blown handle is achieved with a small blow pipe with a bit of glass added, dipped in color or clear, depending on choice. Then you roll it and shape it and bring it over to the glassblower at the right temperature. You literally have five seconds to make it work because it's going to cool down so fast and it won’t want to restick at the top. If the temperature’s right, you flop the handle over and make sure it's straight using the copper pipe.

The Signature

The final step for our mugs is our signature. It starts with a small piece of glass attached to the body of the item, similar to a wax seal, and then we stamp our logo into it. So when you're drinking from your mug, you have that little seal that tells you it's a Glass Academy mug and it came from our studio.

When you get done with your piece, you want to use it, you want to see it, and it's really engaging. But you have to put it away in the annealing oven because it's still hot — maybe 800, 900, or 1,000 degrees. The glass needs to be a certain temperature before it goes into the annealer. If it's too hot, it will slump and be all crooked. So you put it in around 900 degrees and overnight its temperature comes down slowly. When we get here in the morning, it's about 100 degrees. We crack the doors open, let that last residual heat escape, and then we can open the doors all the way and view the items that were made the day before.