BRIGHT SHELLS FOR SHAPING AIR Creating Art in the Medium of Blown Glass
	OCTOBER 2004

by Alex Leader

I’m an artist working in the medium of glass. To be more specific, I use a blowpipe in an art style called offhand glassblowing. I created my first piece in 1992 while a student in college. My initial experience in a glassblowing studio was unforgettable. I had never seen glassblowing before that first encounter but when I walked into that room I became instantly obsessed.

In fact, I was hooked for life, I guess. The process of creation that I saw taking place intrigued me from that first moment. I spent every day for the next three months in that place never touching anything, but content to simply watch and try to understand.

Finally, one of the glassblowers asked me, “Do you want to give this a try?” The most fundamental fact about glass-blowing is that the furnace is heated to a steady 2,000 degrees so the first thing I successfully accomplished was to burn all the hair off my arm. That was also the only success I had in that first encounter, since I failed in getting a useable “gather” of raw glass even to stick on the end of the pipe.

After several attempts, I finally succeeded in blowing a thing that looked a little bit like a pilsner glass, but thick and misshapen. You could probably break your teeth on it. It was wonderful!

Moving on in My Pathway to Art
In those early days I made a number of art objects and succeeded in creating a dozen or so works that were actually pretty good.

I got at job with the Belle Mead Hot Glass Company, which made production gift items — such as flowers, ornaments, and humming bird feeders. It was a small factory and the owner had only been in business a few months. Back in those days it was difficult to find good assistants so I got away with pretending to know enough to get my foot in the door.

I did everything, including sweeping floors, etc. Glassblowing in a factory generates a lot of debris that needs to be cleaned up so I really swept up a lot of glass.

At Belle Mead we would display our products at wholesale shows and trade shows. We made products for up-scale stores like Sacks, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Gumps. The stuff we did falls into the category of art glass. Not really art, but useful for ornamental purposes.

Some of the models I worked from were really nice pieces. We did Venetian style glass objects, called lampadari, which was originally associated with making parts for chandeliers. We sold replicas of flowers and leaves that were originally designed to hang off the chandelier.

I might like to go back to school sometime. However, in art school they only teach you the basics of glassblowing. It is a demanding skill and a craft. A method and formula is required to make even the simple pilsner glass kind of thing that was my first attempt.

The "gather" ready for shaping the blowpipe	Blowing the initial shape
Sizing the object with calipers	Out of the furnace for final shaping
Adding a handle to the object	Final cleaning fo the finished object

Doing Art the Italian Way
The use of glass goes 5,000 years back to the Egyptians who began creating glass products by core forming, which is the process of dipping shaped clay into molten glass. After cooling they would chip out the core and end up with a vessel.

The Romans invented the blowpipe 2,000 years ago. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC displays samples of this ancient blown glasswork from the early centuries A.D.

Modern glassblowing, however, really came into its own in Venice, Italy. Venetian artists developed the style and manner in which I do my craft. In particular, an island in Venice, called Morano, is the geographical heart of the glassblowers’ art.

Bob Custer, the owner of Belle Mead, took me to Venice for a week. He paid for everything. We walked among the shops and studios of Morano and had a wonderful time of learning and observing.

Bob would pose as a buyer so we could go into the back rooms and see the products they didn’t show tourists. It was really nice. Bob’s deception was necessary since they wouldn’t have wanted us to see that stuff if they knew we were glassblowers ourselves.

Lino Tagaliapietra is thought be one of the greatest glassblowers in history. He teaches the art from time to time at craft schools around the country. The other masters in Morano, the island in Venace where this takes place, look askance at his teaching others. “it is like selling your mother on the street corner.”

If I were a Venice glassblower I would be proud that we taught the world to blow glass — since, in fact, that’s what they’ve done.

My Wonderful Medium
Glassblowing is an acquired skill. A skilled craftsman will make it look easy, but it is very difficult. The process becomes most demanding when blowing glass that is extremely thin, like a wine glass. The other difficult part is creating ornate shapes and decorations.

Glassblowing is an art because of all the emotion and energy that goes into it. You have to flow along with the medium. When in its molten state glass becomes a liquid. It is impossible to describe what its like working in this medium. You can’t touch it. Gravity, heat, and time are all working against you. You have to really be in the moment with the thing you are creating.

The process of blowing a piece of glass becomes more important for me than the final product.

I spent some time at Bacchus Glass working with Frank Cabaz as he was creating his art pieces. I really enjoyed the stuff we were making together. I remember one time in particular, when we were working on a large piece — it a large black cylinder, 20 inches tall, and 6-7 inches in diameter.

Frank had the idea of decorating the cylinder with blossoms, which were blown glass disks, yellow and red, like trumpet flowers. We were attaching the blown disks to the outside of the vessel, affixing each of them while it was still hot.

An exciting collaboration took place that day between the artist, assistant and the medium itself! I could feel the process developing a wonderful synergy. The object was long, hot, and constantly moving. Frank was holding it and as I supplied the next disk, he would press the cylinder right on top of it, using the weight of the object to make and seal the contact.

We had a great time that day, arguing and mis-communicating with each other. Frank wanted the piece to be perfect — each individual flower perfectly detailed and arranged. However, the finished product turned out to be more wonderful than his plan. The result transcended the chaos of the process, because the variations — the little “imperfections” — turned the object into something remarkable. It looked like a piece of black wood covered with lichen and flowers. It was beautiful and modern.

Practice of the Art
I’ve been trying to set up my own glass-blowing studio in Sonoma by selling my works and then getting a grant to buy my own equipment. At this point I’m using another person’s studio, but an artist cannot maintain complete control of the process under these conditions.

A group of us share the studio’s facilities. We call the place “Hobo Junction,” because it sits right beside the railroad tracks in a seedy part of Berkeley. When the wind is in the wrong quarter we can smell fertilizer from a near-bye storage area. The tracks are so close the trains sound like they are trying to come through our studio.

The glass-blowing craft begins with melting the glass. This has to be done with care and precision. When you get this wrong, glass can have bubbles and “seeds,” which are many small bubbles. Or they can get “cords,” — thick striations, with weird zigzags.

I’ve developed experience is in learning what gallery owners want and can guess the things they will be interested in.

I worked for a while for Bacchus Glass Company in Sonoma. They brought me to California in 1997. I stopped working for other people in last year, when my current company at that time, O’Dell Designs, moved to Brooklyn and I passed up the opportunity of moving with them. Brooklyn might be a nice place to visit, but who would want to live there, if you didn’t have to?

So now I’m on my own. I’ve been searching the world trying to insert my work into people’s lives. I’ve done some custom work; lighting design. It is easier to work with an individual in a private home than it is to work with a gallery. Homeowners know what they want and don’t intend for it to be mass-produced.

Homeowners are also more understanding about imperfections. In their opinion, small flaws, such as tiny bubbles, merely serve to enhance the value of a work, because they show that this is original — different than any other in the world.

I’ve been looking forward to showing my work in the Brentwood Arts Commission gallery. It will be a wonderful opportunity for me to put myself out in the East County area. I’ve also invited other artists who I admire and whose work is being shown.

I have high hopes for this. I want to hear people’s responses. I’m looking forward to talking about my work. I enjoy any opportunity to educate people about glass as an artistic medium and leading them away from regarding only glass’s utilitarian uses.

I’m married and live in Sonoma County. I helped start a school, Woodland Star Charter School where my son attends. I feel like I’m participating in a grand social experiment with that school. So I’m here for the long haul. I’m not planning to go anywhere because I want to see how all that turns out.