Exquisite Candy Cane Glass
It’s hard to imagine how these bowls are made, even when the process is described. It involves heating solid color glass pieces 'til they can be stretched by two glass blowers, one of whom walks as much as 20 or 30 feet from the other, pulling the glass in order to arrive at thin enough strips.
These lengths are broken into pieces about 8 to 10 inches long and cooled over night in an annealing oven. Meanwhile, clear glass is in the furnace at 2000 degrees, and it, too, is pulled by two glass blowers. The color strips are reheated and somehow the colored glass strips are wrapped in clear glass. Arriving at enough of the thin strips in a sufficient variety of colors for one bowl takes three days.
The colored glass and clear glass are gathered and twisted and reheated till the colored glass melts into the clear glass. Then the “bundled” glass is blown into its final form. Beautiful Handblown Glass
These highly detailed and delicate handblown glass goblets, perfume bottles, and vases are made with a focus on forms from nature, such as flowers and animals.
They are made by a process called lampworking or “flameworking”, which is a technique derived from the centuries old technique of blowing glass using an oil lamp. The artist begins with a glass tube or rod and then applies the desired colors by melting glass on the outside of the tube using a propane/oxygen torch, burning at 5300 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the piece is reheated in the flame, blown out to the desired size and shape, and then further shaped with various graphite and metal tools. The results are really breathtaking.
