February 7, 2012 Glass Blowing

 Bryan took me on a glass-blowing date at Holdman Studios. It was really cool. I mean hot. Like really hot.

 We watched them as they retrieved a blob of fiery, white-hot glass from a crucible on the end of a long pole. He said the glass was about 2100 degrees Fahrenheit... I asked him if he ever got burned and he said everyday. (Notice he's only wearing 1 glove, I'm guessing the other hand has no nerve endings left...)

 Then we had to roll the pole around as the blob cooled a little and try to keep it centered.

 Then we got to choose the colors of the glass and they rolled the blob in bits of colored glass and re-melted it. Once the blob had color we had to pull the blob with tweezers as the glass cooled.

 Then right before the glass cooled completely they stretched the glass blob to create a stem.

The guy helping us made it look so easy but it was NOT because we had to work really fast before the glass cooled. The total time from when he pulled it out of the hot crucible until the glass was completely hard was about 2 minutes. There was amazing art around the studio and if I had a spare $400 I would have purchased one of the platters...
Holdman Studios also does stained glass and they've done a lot of the stained glass in some of the newer Temples like Manhattan, Idaho Falls, San Antonio, and the re-done Laie Temple.