Dreams came true today in the heart of the Murano Glass Blowing district. Three of us toured Wave Murano Glass SRL and two of us dove in and took part in the glass “experience” making small glass bowls with a skilled tutor.
We arrived early for our scheduled glass experience and tour and boy are we glad we did! A designer and his entourage of gallery folks and photographer arrived. The hot shop started working as a well oiled machine on the designer’s vision (from color illustrations and in depth conversation). The final piece consisted of two colors and was about 3 feet tall. We were told they’d make five to cover any breaking or cracking in the annealing process. They were also going to make a smaller companion piece.
They had to keep gathering more glass to make this large commissioned piece. You can see how the size of the molten glass grows from this picture to the next.
When they released the glass from the mold the transformation was amazing. It went in a molten lump of glass and came out as a stunning piece of glasswork
In addition to the custom pieces above, a couple of the glass blowers were working on another project - handles for a plumbing company. Our glass tour guide said they had just finished another project-glass handles for Gucci handbags.
The tour of the hot shop included everything from mixing the chemicals to make the glass to the cold shop where sanding and polishing takes place. We were surprised to see a gentleman working on sanding a flat honey comb like design into a spherical blown glass vase. He somehow managed to create an even design just placing the surface on a large flat spinning sanding stone multiple times. For about a gallon size vase it takes about 8 hours of sanding to form the design, not including the time required to blow and anneal the original sphere.
Our guide explained that they are one of the only shops that makes their own glass. They use a formula that is 60 % fine sand not from the sea as it has too much salt in it.
This man is sanding the outside of the vase to make a honey comb pattern. He has to sand each little patch individually on the large spinning disk and keep it even.
On to our immersion in the experience. There were a total of three for the experience. 1 young lady from North Carolina who knew how to blow glass and two Tally Gals. First we practiced dipping in water- practicing how to gather the glass and keep rolling the pipe.
We practiced how we would gather glass in a furnace that was not turned on and was filled with water
Then we did a practice gather and learned to control (calm) the glass and swing it. We both needed two practice tries to get the correct amount of glass and end up with a nice even glob of glass.
Then we got to gather some actual glass from a small furnace
On to the main event. We chose to make small bowls and picked out the colored glass fritz we wanted to add to the clear base. We went one at a time with lots of help from our tutor. We dipped in the main kiln first gathering some clear glass. It was so hot the tutor stood in front of us to help shield us from the heat. We were told to work quickly, in and turn for the count of 3 then out on a metal rest. The tutor did the next two gathers and we walked quickly across the hot shop to our much smaller glory hole, reheated the glass, gathered our colors, back to the glory hole, then sat at the bench and started working the glass with a wooden tool, from there until the end we were guided step by step back and forth to rewarm our glass and shape, blow a little bit at a time twice, shape some more, rewarm - you get the idea- until we put the glass on another pipe and then using tools and more trips to the glory hole opened the glass to form a bowl shape.
Fortunately our tutor was very skilled and was able to save our misdirected stab at the hole in the glass as we tried to open it up to form the bowl. Tomorrow after it slowly cools for 24 hours we’ll go back and pick up our bowls. We are expecting them to be a bit on the organic side. But what a morning!
One of our wonky or “organic” pieces waiting to cool down
Of course we couldn’t resist the checking out the Wave Murano Glass shop and after our lesson we’re much more in awe of the perfect pieces on display there.
After lunch we headed to our rental unit, did some laundry and took a break. Then no off to the Glass Museum to see glass works dating from Roman times to the present. Lots of amazing pieces.
greta combsJane - This reminds me very much of the pieces of art glass that you and WWC friends saw in the Biltmore house gardens. Reply to this comment 7 months ago
