Sunday, June 01, 2008

People at Work®: The Glassblowers
Atlantic Art Glass




You know, to call glassblowers "glassblowers" is like calling a driver a key putter inner. before this shoot, I thought glassblower stuck a pole into the hot goop and blew whatever it was they wanted to make. (Sort of like Super Elastic Bubble Plastic when we were kids. Remember that stuff?) The actual blowing was only a very tiny part. They should be called Glass turners (the turning is CONSTANT) or sculptors, or molders, or nurturers, or visionaries. All skills I saw tossed around FAR more than blowing.

There also seems to bit a great bit of choreography thouhg both denied it, but watching these two movin around with long poles tipped with red hot molten glass convinces you there is some serious teamwork going on.

This is Ken Perrin and Linda Perrin of Atlantic Art Glass in Ellsworth, Maine. My friend Roberta knows them and they very kindly allowed me into their studio.

You can read more about the art of glassblowing which describes perfectly what they were doing and the names of everything they used from an wikipedia article I lifted because I'm terrible at writing and taking photos at the same time AND see more images here on their very own flickr set.

Their website: www.atlanticartglass.com

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4 comments:

  1. I'll bet there are so many comments SPK wants to leave here. He'll probably start with "All skills I saw tossed around FAR more than blowing"

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  2. that was a beautiful post. very informative and interesting.

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  3. The glassblowers' tools are interesting!

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Jen White