The restrictions were also the reason behind the show’s shorter season and the drop to just five competitors in the workroom instead of the usual 10 - even though the hot shop, a converted industrial building, had become the largest glass studio in North America.Įach contestant still had help from assistants, who are students and graduates of the craft and design program at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ont. So when the glory holes weren’t on, it was five degrees Fahrenheit in there, and when they were on it was 105 degrees.”Īlas, because of the tight filming schedule and COVID-related restrictions, Berk didn’t get a chance to blow a piece for himself. “That workroom is a very, very hot place and we were filming in winter in Canada. “It was amazing and even hotter than I expected it to be,” says Berk of watching the glass-blowers close-up. Finally, with a tweezer tool called jacks, the glass is cut at the blowpipe’s mouthpiece to remove it. The artist uses various tools and techniques to manipulate the piece’s shape and appearance. When the glass starts to harden, it goes into what glass-blowers call a “glory hole” - a furnace burning at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 538 degrees Celsius) - for reheating. Next, the artist will typically blow air through the blowpipe and into the glass to expand the piece as needed. An artist first gathers molten glass from the furnace using a blowpipe, which is then rotated to shape the glass symmetrically. The glass-blowing process is both dangerous and physically taxing. I didn’t even think about the fact that all drinking glasses are still blown by a person.” “I think in this day and age of machines and computers you just assume everything is made by a machine. “Glass-blowing as a whole wasn’t really anything that I’d thought about,” says Berk. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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