How To Get Severely Burnt And Love It

At the craft gallery I work for, we recently had our annual Spring Festival. Cedar Creek Gallery is not just shop; although it was started almost 40 years ago by potters Sid and Pat Oakley as a studio and space to sell their work, over the years it has developed into a fairly large complex that houses three potter's spaces, two glassblowing studios, a full-time landscaper, and has become a place for visiting artists to come and "play".

I have a special relationship with Cedar Creek; I grew up right down the road from the Oakley family, and their daughter Lisa, is one my best friends (we have known each other since we were ten). When I moved back here from the UK, I started "working for pottery". In other words, most of the money I make goes right back to the shop!

Lisa followed in her parents footsteps and has her own glassblowing studio at Cedar Creek. She blows vases, glasses, ornaments and furnace-pulled glass beads which she then uses to design and make her own line of unique jewelry. Her assistant recently moved on and I have been helping her as much as I, being an untrained idiot, can. For this Festival, she let me assist her in the weekend studio demonstrations.

The first thing a glassblower does is "gather" the glass on a long hollow pipe from a furnace full of molten glass. The temperature is around 2200F and the glass has the consistency of honey; it will fall off the pipe if you don't keep rotating it. The heat is intense and every fiber of your being tells you to get away from it. I suspect this is where a lot of people decide they're actually not that interested in the craft.


At this point, the artist can make any number of items; this weekend, Lisa was making beads. Here she is adding color to the hot glass so it can be worked. She rolls her "gather" in tiny pieces of colored glass called fritt.

She then reheats the glass in the glory hole. Now that you've finished snickering at the use of the term "glory hole", I will point out that's me standing next to her, looking nervous. After it's reheated, Lisa blows the glass out to make a giant bead.

The next step is to cool down and shape the class on a marver. That's usually a solid steel table, like hers pictured. She works the glass until it is the shape of the bead she wants. In this case she is making a round bead.


Lisa then continues shaping the bead with her hand using a wet pad. Traditionally, these are made of newspaper. It does need to be re-wet periodically or it will catch on fire, which is always exciting.

The bead is reheated in the glory hole again. She has her assistant make a 'pancake of glass' on another pipe and she attaches the bead to the center of the foot. The bead is now attached to pipes on both sides.



Lisa and her assistant then pull like a tug of war - the glass is still molten and stretches like taffy.




Lisa has to put some weight behind the bead pull as the glass starts to cool and get more stiff. She walks backwards to keep the cane from drooping onto the ground.


While the glass is still almost 1000F, the bead is cut into 2 foot sections and placed into an annealler to cool. This stops the glass from cracking or becoming too brittle to cut later. After 24 hours, the glass will be cut into small beads on a diamond saw.

*An interesting note about using a diamond saw: it won't cut your skin, but it will shear a fake fingernail right off your hand that you paid fifty bucks for not three days before.




This is a bucket of cut and washed beads. You can usually get about a pound of beads per hour.

The beads are then lined up according to size, thickness, and height on a high-temperature kiln shelf. They will be brought up to a temperature of over 1,500F, then flamed by hand using a propane torch to melt and polish the beads to their final luster.

The final step is to make jewelry. She painstakingly assembles earrings, necklaces, bracelets and barrettes from the beads she makes. Here is a picture of some of Lisa's finished bracelets. Each piece is a one-of-a-kind and absolutely beautiful.

Next: I try and make a drinking glass and burn the bejeesus out of myself!