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A window on glass making
Candice Barnard nips her newest creation — a vase made of lapis blue glass — from her glassblowing pipe. She fashions her one-of-a-kind pieces at her studio, Mountain Top Glassworks, above Howard Prairie. Open house next weekend will show how glass blower does it By Bill Varble Candice Barnard uses a wet fruitwood block that looks like a big spoon to tease the lump of glass at the end of her pipe into a hot, blue mushroom. She sticks the thing into a 2,100-degree furnace, takes it out, wets and rolls it some more, then thrusts it into the "glory hole," a big oven she can operate with a foot pedal. "People get a new appreciation for glass when they see how it’s made," she says. The doors to Barnard’s studio, Mountain Top Glassworks, are wide open to let the heat escape from the furnace, the glory hole, a pipe warmer and a kiln. Early-season snow from the tall trees here above Howard Prairie plops onto the workshop’s roof. Barnard opened her studio in January. She plans an open house Saturday and Sunday.Glassblowing was something that happened to Barnard on the way to law school. She grew up in Reading, Pa., spent a year in Spain after high school in 1991 and was impressed by the works of Picasso, Dali and Gaudi. She went to Tulane University to study law but discovered glassblowing her last semester before graduation. Eager for more of the fiery dance with viscous glass, she did a glassblowing apprenticeship in Portland with artist Peter Neff to learn the techniques. There followed three years with Savoy Studios in Portland, learning etching, fusing, stained glass. She worked on such projects as the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut and the famed Russian Tea Room in New York City. She and her husband moved to Ashland last year. With no natural gas available, she runs her equipment on electricity, drawing up to 10,000 watts an hour. Many glassblowers use assistants, but Barnard hasn’t found one. In fact, she has adapted her work and her equipment — like the glory hole pedal — to going it alone. One of Barnard’s glass bowls starts as a simple chunk of lapis blue glass. She heats a pipe, picks up the glass and sticks it in the glory hole. Then she blows an air bubble into the center of the piece, turns it, blocks it, heats it some more. Working quickly and wearing a long sleeve on one arm to avoid burns, she twirls the pipe like a baton twirler to cool the piece, then rolls it in tiny pieces of colored glass called "frit." This is followed by more rolling, more blocking. "Every piece is one of a kind," she says. "I haven’t succumbed to making production pieces yet." After another visit to the furnace, the piece gets rolled on a "marver," a highly polished steel surface that doesn’t suck too much heat. Too quick a change in temperature and the piece would shatter. More trips to furnace and glory hole, more blocking, more rolling. Barnard blasts the piece with a big propane torch, then works the neck with tongs called jacks, which she’s treated with beeswax. Using these she forms a moil, the lip-like place where the glass will part from the pipe. More rolling, heating, twirling, torching, heating. To make a base for the vase, Barnard picks up another piece of hot glass with a pipe, drips a molten blob on the marver and allows it to spread. She sticks the still-hot disk onto the piece and fuses them together in the glory hole. Soon she begins pulling a lip from the vase with the jacks, then cuts off excess lip. For the grand finale, Barnard spins the piece inside the glory hole, allowing it to suddenly grow fatter and fatter like a supernova. Suddenly she takes it out and lets it droop. Finally she nips the fluted result from its pipe and sticks it in the kiln overnight. Such a fluted vase sells for about $150 to $250. "They’re kind of my signature," she says. She says the beauty of the pieces never fail to deliver an endorphin rush that’s addictive. |
