Blowing the Glass Balloon

Douglas Hackney Travel

While we were in Lincoln City, Oregon, Steph arranged for us to learn how to blow glass at the Jennifer L. Sears Glass Studio. I’ve been interested in learning more about glass blowing for years, so this was a chance to finally have some hands-on experience with the process.

We both made hanging glass floats, and had a great time learning how the basic process works.

Afterwards I wrote the following story about the experience for our 3 1/2 year old granddaughter, Nakeya: Blowing the Glass Balloon http://www.hackneys.com/docs/glassballoon.pdf

For the details of how the process works, please read Blowing the Glass Balloon. Some photos of Steph’s experience follow.

Steph's gather of molten glass

rolling the gather in colored glass

melting the colored glass in the Glory Hole furnace

heating the gather in the Glory Hole furnace

melting the colored glass in the Glory Hole furnace

twisting the melted colors into the gather

using wet cherry wood tools to form the work

forming the initial air bubble

blowing to form the float

happy glass blower

adding molten glass for the hanger

finished hanging glass float

All photos by Douglas Hackney

Copyright (c) 2007, Douglas Hackney