| Blown art glass is quickly becoming one of | | | | potash and other compounds. The actual |
| the fastest growing hobbies in North | | | | transformation of raw materials into glass |
| America... and it is about time. Glassblowing | | | | takes place well above 2000 degrees |
| has been around since 27 BC in Syria, though | | | | Fahrenheit.After the glass has melted, the |
| the first evidence of manmade glass products | | | | artist uses a blowpipe to shape the glass. |
| occurs in Mesopotamia in the late 3rd century | | | | The blowpipe is about five feet long and is |
| BC. But the advancement of actual "blowing" | | | | used for blowing a parison of molten glass. |
| glass using a tube transformed the materials | | | | Molds are used to impress decorative |
| usefulness. The new technique quickly spread | | | | patterns.There are two types of modern |
| throughout the Roman world.Harvey Littleton, | | | | glassblowing but offhand glassblowing is the |
| a ceramics professor, and Dominick Labino, a | | | | type most people picture in their mind when |
| chemist and engineer, are credited with | | | | they think about this kind of art. The artist |
| starting the most recent "studio glass | | | | gathers a glob of fused glass at the end of a |
| movement" in 1962. The two held workshops at | | | | hollow tube called a blowpipe or blowing |
| the Toledo Museum of Art. This is where the | | | | iron. The molten glass is then fashioned into |
| current method of melting glass in a furnace | | | | its final form by various techniques of |
| for use in blown glass art was originated. | | | | blowing and shaping with hands, tolls and |
| Thus, Littleton and Labino are credited with | | | | molds. The second kind of glassblowing is |
| making molten glass available to artists in | | | | lampworking. Lampworking is the softening of |
| private studios.The actual process of | | | | a glass tube by heating it in the flame of a |
| preparing the glass for blowing is very | | | | torch. Next, the softened glass is |
| involved though. The glass is melted in | | | | manipulated into its final form by blowing |
| furnaces using the sand, limestone, soda, | | | | and shaping with hands and tools. |