I am very excited and very apprehensive all at the same time. The Gallery where I have my jewelry has agreed to sponsor a show of my son's company's glasswork! This is very cool. Christopher and his partner, Matt Salley, have labored long and hard to bring their own glassblowing studio to fruition, and it is finally starting to go.
I have written about it before--
http://www.marblecityglassworks.com/ -- but to have an exhibition here, where we live is very neat, since the company is in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This is one of my favorite photos of Christopher blowing glass, but this was taken before he and Matt had their own studio, and Christopher was working for someone else. Matt and Christopher began working on their own studio in Matt's garage several years ago. Glassblowing, I hardly need to point out, is not like painting or drawing or making jewelry. You cannot pick up your paints or beads and move to another spot.
(Matt Salley)
There are the furnaces, the annealers, the glory hole, the glass itself-- the gas to power the furnaces, the equipment to blow the glass: pipes and rods and calipers and benches and gloves and glasses and a thousand other things of which I am blissfully unaware.
In the summertime, the temperatures are brutal: the furnaces running at 1200-1500 degrees in a place where it may already be 90 degrees outside. There is no way to air condition a hot shop.
Christopher and Matt are working hard and making beautiful products, and I sure hope this exhibition will be a hit. I am really looking forward to it.
