I have a friend who is a master glass blower

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Well he had an open house a few weeks ago and I shot his making of a small vase with base, or rather large drinking cup.
http://www.pbase.com/demdeepellummus...lower&page=all
Any comments appreciated.
I know a couple shots are slightly blurred but I had a crowd behind me watching this and I was shooting this all handheld.

His studios are down in the Cedars area, a lot of artists are down in that area down by the new police headquarters, Old City Park and Gilleys.

[bullsparade]

Very cool...that is such a neat art!!

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

This was a real simple piece that he was doing. He does some vases and other works that would knock your socks off. He did a bunch of work for Neiman Marcus a couple years ago. Some of the pics are on his web site.

Some large vases that he is doing now are not shown on his site. A couple of these are at least 24 inches tall and 10 inches across. He is limited in size on some things by the depth of his annealing ovens and vases like these have to be put in standing up.

I have known him for probably a dozen years now and he and his wife are some of the nicest people that you could want to know.

BTW he does commissions if you have some extra $$$ setting around!

[Wendy]

Wow! I looked through his site and he has some amazing stuff! What an incredibly talented artist he is!!!

[Lissa]

I *heart* art glass. His work is beautiful!

Beautiful art glass literally takes my breath away.

[engstrom]

How long did it take him to make the vase that you were photographing? It looks like a long process but I bet his skill let him make it pretty fast since it's a simple piece.

[Digital Prophet]

Glass blowing is a fascinating and beautiful art. Lovely work.

Prophet out.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Originally Posted by engstrom

How long did it take him to make the vase that you were photographing? It looks like a long process but I bet his skill let him make it pretty fast since it's a simple piece.

Since this was a multiple step piece but was small it was right at 12 minutes (pulled up time stamps off of my digital cards). I have seen him work on pieces that have taken 35-40 minutes though when there are multiple layers of glass being added and twisted and shaped.

If you go to his website and see his large rondells, wavy looking platters, those have many additional steps where color and the lip are added.These can be up to 24 or so inches wide. The Chihuly installation at the DMA range a bit larger because they have larger annealing ovens at their disposal

Now those are great to watch since they spin the rod with the glass attached to whirl out then they twirl the glass overhead like a baton to get the wave rim pattern.
They also make classic christmas ornements which also use giant molds to get the ribbed effect into the glass so when it is blown out the effect stays.
He is having another show at the Sons of Hermans Hall in Deep Ellum next weekend where there are 40 or so highly skilled artisans selling their work. The work ranges from jewelry to pottery to glass to hand woven clothing and on and on. Usually a guy will do a racu (sp?) demonstration and there has been a blacksmith outside in the courtyard in the past also. (no photographers in the past not sure about this year).
That show is Fri Dec 9th from 5-9, Sat from 10-6 and Sunday from 10-6 and is at 3414 Elm Street Dallas Texas 75226.
Now if your a glass lover here is one of the best if not the best art glass blower compounds in the world
http://www.chihuly.com
Now to be honest Mr Chihyuly actually has artisans working under him doing most of the blowing.

This is a hallway with a rondell ceiling that Mr Chihuly's group created.