A Day in the Glass Blowers Studio

I was super excited when I got the chance to visit Suzanne and Kyles Studio! You should check out their Etsy shops and see all the cool (or hot rather) items for sale.
I have never been to a glass blowing studio, so of course I was unprepared. The day I went over we had snow on the ground and so I bundled up (mistake!). The minute I walked into the studio I was blasted with hot air. So take note: a glass blowing studio is HOT!  So lets get right to all the fun pictures as I walk you through all the awesomeness that is glass blowing!

Medieval torture devices! Okay that is what they looked like to me, but to a glass blower these are just tools of the trade! I wanted to touch them all, but beware they can be deceivingly hot, so if you have a chance to visit a glass blowing studio be sure not to touch anything!

So first up they would take a piece of colored glass that had warmed up in what looked like a small refrigerator. Kyle would then snip off a piece of the colored glass onto a pole that Suzanne was holding. This small piece of  colored glass would make a few balls!

Suzanne would take the colored glass and dip it into a big hot pot of clear glass. The colored glass is super saturated so a little goes a long way! Now would be a good time to say that there were three large hot oven type of equipment (sorry I dont know the exact name for these). One was to keep the colored glass and poles warm (and it rotated!), another oven contained a huge white ceramic pot of clear glass (this one was sooooo HOT), and the last one (the one Suzanne is next to) was to heat up the glass in between working on it!

Here is Suzanne working the glass into its shape!

To me it looked like she was working with sugar. I have made some caramel before it the glass looked like a firmer caramel. Kyle would blow into the pole and that would puff out the glass on the end Suzanne was working on. She would then use the tools to shape the glass. It was pretty amazing to see glass being worked!

Suzanne would then take the glass off the pole and finish the edge! These were then put in a large cooler to cool down from really really hot to just hot. These balls were going to be apart of those glass lamps in the last picture! How cool was that! Or rather how Hot was that! heh.

Here are some of Suzanne’s artwork! Now you can really see all the hard work that goes into each piece.  Considering at any time the glass could fall off the pole and you would be out of luck.

And here is one of Kyle’s artwork! You can even see his reflection in the piece! How cool is that.

Okay so that was a rather short trip to a glass blowing studio, but really there is soo much effort and work that goes into each and every piece that it is truly amazing. Each piece can take anywhere from 30 minutes to hours, and it could all be for nothing if it breaks. Each piece is truly unique and a treasure~