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This inspirational Google alert is from Illinois, a bit outside the
PA-NJ area, but it is a fun article...<br>
<br>
There is also an excellent 2.5 minute video here: <a
href="http://www.dailyherald.com/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=83">http://www.dailyherald.com/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=83</a><br>
<p><font size="+1">Google News Alert for: <b>glassblower</b></font></p>
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<a moz-do-not-send="true" style="color: blue;"
href="http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=134284&src=3"><b>Glassblower</b>
shows just what it takes to perfect his creations</a><br>
<font size="-1"><font color="#666666">Chicago Daily Herald -
Chicago,IL,USA</font><br>
Rather, it is the instincts and touch of James Wilbat, a <b>glass
blower</b> for 31 years, that coaxes wondrous color and shape from raw
material. <b>...</b><br>
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href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ncl=http://www.dailyherald.com/story/%3Fid%3D134284%26src%3D3"><font
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See all stories on this topic</font></a>
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<div class="storyHeadline"><big><big><big>Glassblower shows just what
it takes to perfect his creations<br>
</big></big></big> By Mick Zawislak, Daily Herald Staff<big><big><big><br>
</big></big></big></div>
<p class="News">The tools used to produce fanciful and delicate visions
of glass are crudely brutish, considering the finished products.</p>
<p class="News">Heavy hammers are used to pound a red hot mass of glass
into a rough form. A roofing torch provides spot heat. The molten
"gather" is rolled and shaped on a half-inch thick slab of stainless
steel.</p>
<p class="News">The artistry here is not accomplished with finely
calibrated instruments. Rather, it is the instincts and touch of James
Wilbat, a glass blower for 31 years, that coaxes wondrous color and
shape from raw material.</p>
<p class="News">"It's all done by feel and experience," says Wilbat,
who studied water color and drawing as a youth.</p>
<p class="News">Admittedly a terrible painter, he switched to ceramics.
But he was permanently sidetracked after discovering emerging
techniques in the 1970s that allowed artists in private studios to make
use of molten glass.</p>
<p class="News">For the past 16 years, his workshop has been a small
concrete block unit tucked away in a Mundelein industrial park. This is
not a public gallery and aside from a few open houses a year, few
outsiders witness the process.</p>
<p class="breakhead">Always, there's heat</p>
<p class="News">Even with the office door closed, there is an
underlying rumble -- the sound of natural gas used to fire the
furnaces. </p>
<p class="News">Always, there is heat. It emanates from one of two
furnaces, the fires nearly blinding in intensity when the doors are
open. Despite industrial fans pushing air from front to back, the heat
is searing near the core and merely toasty beyond.</p>
<p class="News">The fires rarely are extinguished, which is why after
all these years Wilbat still gets to work about 7:15 a.m. He sometimes
spends more than $2,000 a month on gas and electric and doesn't want to
waste any time.</p>
<p class="News">Every piece involves a series of steps starting with
the furnace, where a 150-pound tank of molten crystal sits at a
constant 2,200 degrees. A second furnace is used to reheat the work as
it progresses.</p>
<p class="News">The colors are melted and blown into thin plates
consisting of a layer of colored glass, a layer of white glass and two
surrounding layers of clear glass. These are cooled gradually at lower
temperatures in any of five ovens, lest they shatter. </p>
<p class="breakhead">At the beginning</p>
<p class="News">To start a project, Wilbat first cuts several pieces of
colored glass into various shapes and sizes. These are heated to 1,000
degrees in what is known as a pick-up oven.</p>
<p class="News">Next, he dons dark welders' glasses and wielding a
5-foot long stainless steel hollow rod, called a blow pipe, extracts a
hunk of clear glass from the tank. </p>
<p class="News">"It's scary because the fire is right there and the
heat is right there in front of you," he said. The temperature in the
room inches toward 90 degrees.</p>
<p class="News">A plum-sized mass of glass the color of a Dreamsicle is
then rolled into the shape of an egg. Wilbat blows through the pipe,
which controls the flow of the molten glass.</p>
<p class="News">"By blowing, the walls of the glass become thinner," he
said. "It's the same weight but becomes more of a volume of glass."</p>
<p class="News">A layer of crushed color, known as frit, is added as an
overlay and thrust back into the inferno.</p>
<p class="News">Colors come in the form of small glass rods shaped like
candy canes from manufacturers in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and
Germany.</p>
<p class="News">"How a painter goes to his palette and squeezes them
out and mixes them -- I've got my colors already made," says Wilbat. </p>
<p class="breakhead">The artistic part</p>
<p class="News">Blending them in specific patterns is where the
artistry emerges.</p>
<p class="News">Now, the piece glows like an orange setting sun. It
quickly pales, assuming the lighter but still dense hue of a harvest
moon.</p>
<p class="News">As the layers are added, Wilbat carefully shapes the
piece with specially carved molds of fresh apple or cherry wood and a
wad of wet newspaper. </p>
<p class="News">Layer follows layer and the piece, destined to become a
vase, is the size of a 16-inch softball. It's rolled in white glass and
decorative dots of color are added. </p>
<p class="News">At this point, Wilbat is constantly turning and rolling
the piece, fine-tuning the shape as his assistant, Arlo Fishman, keeps
a steady flow through the blow pipe. </p>
<p class="News">"Keep going. Keep going. Stop!" commands Wilbat.</p>
<p class="breakhead">'All by feel'</p>
<p class="News">Now, he uses centrifugal force to elongate the glass,
moving it side to side, like weed whacking. He switches the motion and
the pipe is twirling like a baton. One last twirl and then the piece --
in this case a vase -- is slightly flattened with wooden paddles,
again, all by feel.</p>
<p class="News">He makes it look easy, despite working with a very,
very hot substance. One would think burns would be a daily occurrence.</p>
<p class="News">"I cut myself more," says Wilbat. "I have a lot of
respect for the glass when it's hot and less respect when the glass is
cold."</p>
<p class="News">The last step is the knock-off, removing the piece from
the pole. It's a one-shot deal. </p>
<p class="News">Depending on the complexity, completing a piece can
take 15 minutes to as long as four hours. Many of Wilbat's complicated
pieces are influenced by expressionist painters of the 1950s.</p>
<p class="News">"It's taken 15 or 20 years to get that expression, that
energy, that influence. I look at them as almost paintings," he says.</p>
<p class="News">"It just fascinates me I can do this every day and it
changes every day." </p>
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