[PA-NJ Glassblowers] Bloomberg Business : "Made" is a series of gorgeous short films that demonstrate how everyday luxury objects are made

Tony Patti gaffer at glassblower.info
Sun Dec 20 20:21:27 EST 2015


Bloomberg Business (formerly Business Week magazine) published this article three days ago, 

with a very nice 9 minute video about the glass art of Lisa Aronzon,

who lives and works in Broadway Virginia (population 3,678) in the Shenandoah Valley.

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-made-lisa-aronzon-glass-blowing/ 

(FYI, we see in the video that she uses Spectrum 96 Studio Nuggets)

 



 


How to Make Hand-Blown Glass


 


Lisa Aronzon has been turning molten glass into colorful, functional works of art for over 25 years. There’s not a day that it’s still not a wonder.

 

By James Tarmy | Dec. 17, 2015

Video and Photographs by Zach Goldstein

 <http://www.bloomberg.com/news/special-reports/made-series> Made is a series of simple, gorgeous short films that demonstrate how everyday luxury objects are made, and honor the process and craftsmen behind them.

Painters put brushes to canvas, sculptors take chisels to marble, potters shape clay on a wheel, but the process for handblown glass is, to put it mildly, slightly more obscure.

“I’ll be out in the world selling my work at a festival, and I’ll ask a child if they know what glass is made of,” says  <http://www.lisaaronzonglassstudio.com/> Lisa Aronzon, 58, a glass-blowing artist based in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. “I’ve actually had a child say, ‘Plastic?’ ” When Aronzon explains that glass is made of sand, “Their eyes light up. … It seems like magic, or alchemy,” she says. And in a sense, it is.

Lisa Aronzon shapes a piece of molten glass with nothing but a constant spinning motion—and a wet newspaper.

Lisa Aronzon shapes a piece of molten glass with nothing but a constant spinning motion—and a wet newspaper.

Photographer: Zach Goldstein/Bloomberg

Aronzon has been blowing glass for more than 25 years. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she got her MFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland, where she met titans in the field including  <http://www.chihuly.com/> Dale Chihuly, arguably the most famous glass blower in the world, and  <http://www.wmorris.com/> William Morris, one of the more innovative American glass blowers of the last 30 years. Her main influence, however, isn’t other glassmakers, she says: It’s the world around her. “I always talk about painting with the glass, and how I can relate it back to art history and nature,” she says.

Happily, her 1,800-square-foot studio is set beside her house, in what was once a classic car garage, surrounded by apple orchards and vineyards, on the edge of Broadway (population: 3,678). There, Aronzon creates vibrant vases, ornaments, and sculptures and is in the process of founding a nonprofit,  <http://www.veteransglassblowingday.org/> Veterans Glassblowing Day, which teaches the art to veterans and active military nationwide.

Blocks of transparent colored glass are heated to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit before being applied to the main bubble.

Blocks of transparent colored glass are heated to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit before being applied to the main bubble.

Photographer: Zach Goldstein/Bloomberg

“A stained-glass vase is a three-dimensional piece of art,” she says, musing as the late afternoon sun cuts patterns in her studio. “There’s nothing more beautiful than sunlight coming through glass.”

The initial stages of glass blowing bear virtually no resemblance to the finished product. In the first step, Aronzon dips a 4.5-foot-long stainless steel pipe into a pool of liquid glass kept at about 2,000F (1,093C). This is called a gather, “like putting honey on a spoon.” Depending on the size of the object, she’ll start with one or two of these dips.

Next comes color. Aronzon’s creations are a kaleidoscope of saturations and hues, inspired by the stained-glass windows in the gothic Sainte-Chapelle chapel in Paris, among other things. Multicolored highlights are applied by rolling the hot gather into a bowl of granulated colored glass (called frit), or by superheating a chunk of translucent colored glass (called bar) to 1,000F, then drizzling it on.

After drizzling on a design, Aronzon snips the glass with scissors. She'll then re-heat it all, literally melting the color into what will soon become a vase.

After drizzling on a design, Aronzon snips the glass with scissors. She’ll then re-heat it all, literally melting the color into what will soon become a vase.

Photographer: Zach Goldstein/Bloomberg

Then comes the blowing part of glass blowing—forceful, steady puffs down the length of the pipe to create a little bubble, like playing a particularly difficult wind instrument—and the real work starts. With nothing but the power of gravity, quick movements, and wet newspapers—yes, newspapers—protecting her bare hands (the moisture instantly steams, forming a cushion of sorts), she shapes and cools that “starter bubble” to the point where it’s not moving but is still warm enough to meld with more glass. For complicated patterns, she works with an assistant to drip ropes of heated colored glass from other pipes onto the main bulb, snipping them off with scissors.

“A lot of people might be technically good glass blowers, but they might not understand how to use color,” she says, noting how, like paint, different combos of chemicals and metals in the colored glass can make for something beautiful—or muddy. “This is where I need to be an artist and a designer.”

After each layer, the main glass bubble (still hundreds of degrees hot) is reheated in the oven again. “I need to actually push that color into the bubble and make it flat,” Aronzon says. “If there are any bumps or gaps, an air bubble could form, which could cause cracking later on.” She then redips into clear glass for another gather. More color or patterns are added. Dip. Heat. Smooth out. Repeat.

Aronzon says the best place for her work is in front of a window.

Aronzon says the best place for her work is in front of a window. “There’s nothing more beautiful than sunlight coming through glass.”

Photographer: Zach Goldstein/Bloomberg

To get to its final form, a wet wooden block helps evenly center the ball of molten glass. Timing, precise muscle movements, and gravity all play a part here, as does continuous motion of the pipe—again, think of honey dripping off a spoon. “Otherwise,” she says, “the mass will fall off-center,” and the bubble won’t expand evenly when air is put into it.

Once blown to the object’s full size and shaped successfully, it’s severed from the blowpipe. Finishing steps (more heating!) ensure it won’t crack and that there aren’t jagged edges, and only then, finally, does it go in the cooling oven. Over the course of 12 hours, Aronzon brings the temperature down from 900 degrees, slowly enough to ensure there’s no internal stress. She then grinds and polishes a flat bottom, signs and dates with an engraving tool, and ta-da, a vase is born. Aronzon can turn out four objects on a good day—most take “two hours and 30 years” to complete, she laughs—with prices ranging from $20 (for an ornament) to $700 (for an elaborate vase).

“Glass blowing takes years of practice,” she says. “It can take up to 10 years to actually become skilled enough to make it work. It takes repetitive practice, like Martina Navratilova hitting that ball again and again and again.”

 

Enjoy,


Tony Patti
  
 <http://www.glassblower.info> www.glassblower.info
  
 <mailto:gaffer at glassblower.info> gaffer at glassblower.info

 <http://www.glassblower.info/qr-code.html> QR Code for Tony Patti - www.glassblower.info

 

 

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