What item got you into glass

I realised the other day that I've been doing glass for over 20 years now ... I stopped counting at 12 and for the last 8 years my standard answer to "how long?" was "12 years" ... meh, getting older is no fun ... but glass is!
For me it's not so much of a question of what got me into it, but who got me into it. Simple answer is that glass has been in my family for a long time and like a good traditional glass family my father taught me. He was a sick-ass scientific glass instrument maker and took me as his apprentice. In the end, sci wasn't for me, though, but the gift he gave me with his knowledge and teaching I wouldn't exchange for anything in the world. Now he's gone and I miss him a lot, but he's with me every day and in every piece I make.
Thanks, Dad!

When I was tiny, my parents and grandparents collected a lot of what I considered to be dumb shit from around the world. A lot of this is worth blah blah blah because blah blah blah. But they had these paperweights, many of which were Orient and Flume, and they were so amazing. So many layers of flowers and butterflies and tiny little patterned circles...the fuckin' millis...intricate scenes built of these tiny little pictures. I would sneak away and pull them from the glass cabinets and just sit and roll them in my hands until I was caught. So heavy and solid, yet beautiful and fragile. I loved glass as soon as I knew what glass was. Then, when I was five or six, Fire Island did a demo at The Old Pecan Street Festival and I was sold. They made these transparent rainbow paperweights...and they made their own glass which amazed me. I've collected glass my whole life.

Then I grew up and met a hippie living in a bus in a friend's driveway and he taught me to make pipes in trade for me babysitting his kid and towing his bus.

I have a buddy that was blowinm and Id watch sometimes but, buy more often and that shit was xpensive.. So I found a deal on a kiln and M8 for 150$, was suposta git it for my buddys brother, but decided to keep it after I found out what it was worth.. and It it was all over sense then.. lots of fun and lil disappointment and a lot of sweat..

never gets old..

I bought a pipe while visiting relatives in cali. The dude at the shop told me a local guy made them. That got me thinking about the fact that I could really do that. I was 16 then. 22 now

The day I met a the first blower I ever met, I asked him way too many annoying questions. He let me watch him 3 times then said pay up or push off. So I pushed off. Saved up. saved up. saved up. Got shit, got hooked up with a spot in an off campus metal working shop and taught myself based on what I saw my friend do in those three times and what I could see online. Cosmo let me come to his place and watch and even let me try a pendant before I got my own stuff set up. He helped me alot. I met him here on the forum.

My friend eventually let me work at his shop once he saw that I could blow glass and we have been sharing shops off and on since then.

the magic, the flame, the possibilities and the boys!!!

The boys huh? That's just funny to me. I was five years in before I met any glass boys who didn't smell like cheese and live in a bus. No offense to any of you shop smell like cheese...I just don't find it appealing. Fumunda is about the only cheese I don't love. "Showers were an option. Those who checked yes were greatly appreciated."

i usally don't like millies/murinis but that piece is so beautitful butterfly. amazing how far someone can push a technique..

Always had a love of glass pipes, had quite the collection back in the day. Then when my senior project came around, a year long project where you have to learn something on your own and write a paper on it, I decided to go with glassblowing because it was really interesting to me.

As far as learning goes I surfed the web, talked to some people in the field and was referred to Contemporary Lampworking by Bandhu Dunham. Using those books and this website I've been able to learn everything that I have.

Meth dealer by trade, i thought I'd cut the margins those daymn shops are takin outta my hands & the janky extra pipe trade, so now I do both, onestopshop so to speak! LMFAO

I'd alway been obsessed by glass, my grandmother had this HUGE blown softglass Jaguar that was all reduced metallic greens & browns, was a truely awsome piece (musta cost a fortune during WW2) that led to marbles,discovering most of them were machine made led to heartbreak & pubertly, then I got into horticulture & joined Tc, here I am finally discovering about myself through glass art!

screaming kids ,flip flops and a cold beer on the bench...........i used to spend my days fellin trees and loading 'em up to be hauled away. on the way home from work i would stop by a friends house and watch him work(melt glass). and then it dawned on me, this is what i want to do. work from home , be able to be at work and be there for wife and son all at the same time, beer'o'clock happens when i want and , oh ya, I F-N HATE STEEL TOE BOOTS!!!

glass on dead lot, and i started selling glass belt buckels on lot and it snow balled to now! oh yeah, couln't afford day care for my girls...

jlee/mike fro 2003 collab

http://www.glasspipes.org/Gal1076_GI...w_Mike_Fro.asp

once i saw it i was completely obsessed with glass and melted random test tubes with a mapp gas torch

thataintart.com

I melted glass in chemistry class in 11th grade too. We use to make hookahs out of two hole rubber stoppers and a flask. My teacher even gave us stoppers??? Not sure why cause he knew we were just going to make pipes but anyhow I now use them in my glass studio. I'm going to mail him something cool one day.

Anyhow the day I walked into Ithaca commons, I was 16 and thought to myself after buying a $40 spoon, "Wouldn't it be cool if I made mj pipes all day and got paid for it?" It was only a few years later I met a glass blower and started buying books and supplies. (I had a torch and a kiln collecting dust for about a year b4 anything was built). People told me it wouldn't work as a career and to get a "real job"....Now I make 3 pipes in about 4 hours at $20 a piece. Who's laughing now! (Besides my mother that I live with...)......Slick

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Slick420

People told me it wouldn't work as a career and to get a "real job"

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Isn't it awesome to have one of those jobs that most people can't even imagine and certainly not what most kids think they want to be when they "grow up"? :D

well ive always like glass pipes and pendants, marbles and wondered how they were made...i found this site and another glass site and watching you guy come up with all your creations i said to my self i can do this shit lol..so i sold some things and bought a torch and a bunch of glass..now its my life, all my friends are trippin on some of the thing i make, want me to make them things and thats the most satisfying part..people actually wanting my art.. i see it as a never ending story in my life.. once i can create some really cool things i know it will just get better and better...

at first i thought it was pipes.

now i remember being at a craft store w/ my mom and reading the tags on glass bottles/vases saying they were handmade and that's why there's bubbles in the work.

man, i loved the glass bottle aisle.

I never got into any kind of production untill i needed to pay bills.. but I still started and still am immersed in the technical play, design, and build of pipes and probably always will be at some level.

Goblets you can get to.. but i've never seen anyone come in making/selling them.

I still think I've made more pendants than pipes.. and regarding art or form.. i in the sculptural camp.. which some can do.. some very well.. but just like so many musicians that can play awesome music.. only some can write awesome music.. I find the same with a lot of technically skilled craftsman.. .. ramble... ramble stop.

Always been a pyro. Loved watching the guy making little clear dragons at the renaissance fairs and shit. Grew up some and discovered my first glass pipe. A tangible, functional, often times (And in this case) beautiful piece of art with such an aura to it, such a ritual, such respect. At this point the juices were flowing in my brain. the signals were there.
shortly later went to Trails and saw the sexiest Darby toob I'd ever seen. Until that point i was still buying cheap glass. I didn't know a toob could be made so well, then found out it was all one guy and I was blown away. talked to an employee, learned some stuff about darby and GTTs, got a hot head sophomore year of highschool, redmax junior year, shortly followed by a kiln, then shortly followed by a delicious darby class. I sold my first case of class before I was legally allowed in the shop, I'm now 19, rocking a Mirage and pedal loving the possibilities, trying to find my niche while still gettin enough money to keep experimenting. Sorry. Rant. First safety break after an extremely long day. Ah the drought is over.
one love

Watching a old man making glass animals in a seaside store,
45 years ago, (only now thinking " i could do that") lol

I wanted to sell pipes, found out about import v. homeblown and it all went down hill from there lol, couple grands later and some years lost to absolute pondering on glass here I lay to stay and play

Marble Collecting........

Got ahold of a large collection of old marbles about 9 years ago and started selling them on Ebay. After selling about 2000 marbles I found one that was soo kool that I couldn't sell it. Shortly thereafter I started collecting older marbles and not selling them anymore. Then I found out that there were also contemporary marbles being made today, and I really really liked them but I was too cheap to buy alot of them. Happened across a vid on youtube in jan this year and I was sold that I could make my own Marbles. Watched youtube vids for a month straight and decided to get my own torch. Now I make my own contemporary marbles because I am still too cheap to buy alot of contemporary marbles.

bout ten years ago I met this chick ,, and she had this glass wand.. she made me do crazy things to her with that wand.. and now I love glass .. hweeheh

hahahahaha

my brother bought me an i/o fumed chillum when i was a freshman in highschool..lol it blew my mind..8 years later i got setup

:bangHead:My ex-girl breaking all my bad ass pieces. So finally did a little research and here i am. Tired of buying, rather invest and start making my own:D I have always been fascinated and always ask "How do they do that" And know thanks mainly to this forum(everyone) it has shed a lot of light on the subject. But foremost this is a wonderful art form!!! My thinkn has changed and it has gone from wantin to make pipes to jus workin with glass.

PEACE:chilling:

I have been into crafts most my life , poems , painting , dried flowers, bead loom working ,etc. so just following my love of crafting . Now doing pendents ,animals , flowers and recently marbles . I am still growing into what God wants me to be so who knows from here . :)

my oil vape doohicky thingamajigger.

what about the spunglass that is still made today by some glassartis,it is called not so much carnival glass but what {bando} salsaglass he devoted {1} page to the {novelty} glass in his books,and the people i have spoke to say ..... i don't know how to do it . anyway it for me was watching someone do it .back in the day they didn't even have kilns for it we flame anealed the glass and hoped it wouldn't crack. some times i would put the hot peice under a cardboard box.

Well for me, even though I haven't touched a torch yet, it's definately pipes but after looking through a few issues of Flow and Glassline, I have an extreme fasination with marbles, pendants and sculpture...in that order.

Well, one day I was in Burlington Vermont with a traveling camp of fellow circus performers (no joke). After our show, I stumbled into the Bern Gallery and was looking at some pretty ridiculous pieces (20,000 dollar millenium falcoln bubbler). There were two guys standing behind this booth with raging fires in front of them and big ass pieces of tubing in hand. I was completely mesmerized. Didn't even know what they were making (could've guessed but...) but I knew I wanted to do whatever it is that they were doing. I think it was a pre-existing love for fire and interest in blown glass that made me all of the sudden realize what it was I wanted to do.

I signed up for a class in Boston once I got home, and was absolutely hooked. Think we made beads and marbles. Then I managed to substitute my final semester in high school for an internship at the studio. Everyday, I steamed the labels off of wine bottles for slumping, swept the whole building, cleaned tables, painted kiln shelves with release...general slave labor, and got to practice flameworking in the downtime.

As far as objects go, I really hit it big with pendants, cane striped and implosions. Very quickly, my interest turned to goblets and cupware, and that's where I'm at today.

So, there's my story!

pipes was my first goal,
now it is paying off the mortgage with glass ornaments .

My grandfather had a marble I loved (I have it now.) It has definitely been through several generations of kids (probably from the late 1800's.) I thought it would be really fun to learn how to make marbles, so I signed up for a lampworking class. I probably made beads for a couple of years before I ever made a marble but now I am doing more marbles than anything.

Peg

I was sitting at my campsite on the last day of a music festival. My friend who I met that weekend ( and who ultimately changed my life) was counting the money he had made from selling his wares. He ended up making more in that weekend than I was making in a month. That's all it took for me to get interested. I was unemployed a couple years later and that's when I bought all my equipment and never looked back.

It was a hellish combo of low sat scores and an aversion to picks and shovels. Plus it allows for a high accessment of skills without any pesky peer review by those damn high achievers.

wow...old thread bump.

Accident. yes, by accident.

After 7 years in the graphics/printing industry, switching like the hotness I was and climbing the money ladder between employers.....I got laid off.

So my hippy friends who travelled around the country in their big hot mess of an RV came back around the Philly way again. This was the third year they were stopping in PHilly to stay at my house.

First year they were doing hemp, got me to spend a week in OC MD doing hair wraps on the beach with them. Second year they were sewing stash pouches by hand.

So this time they were so excited because they "learned how to blow glass with some guy up on a mountain in Oregon".......

Well, I was getting unemployment, working under the table for my friends industrial pressure washing company (I am the man with a 5000psi 5gpm hot machine....I can clean anything, bulldozers, restaurants, trucks etc.), and here was a chance to learn something cool.

I was hooked right away. I thought that glass was the closest physical manifestation of an acid trip without the drugs. So I had an intensive 4 month pipe making class, and then I was on my own. 4 years later I quit Hydroman Powerwashing (he was Hydroman and I was The Soap) and went full time in the glass business.

I always loved working with my hands. In the graphics field I had learned to operate and maintain every piece of equipment we had. I also took on freelace design jobs for clients that the computer guys didn't want to touch and was allowed to print and finish these jobs and maintain my own quality control. The sales reps loved me for that.

So glass became my graphic design/photography/printing/finishing career all in one tight little basket. I'm surviving, slowly building my name up, slowly improving, and really enjoying my job. Plus I still do band flyers, cd covers, take photo's all the time with my D70, play in a band, and make art for a living.

early 90's dead tour these neat pipes kept showing up more and more often they changed color and were made of glass and holy shit they didnt always break every time you dropped them.

early 94' my sisters bf charlie had started blowing glass and i was selling his wares back here in michigan. i decided i was going to learn so i moved to yellowstone. saved up several thousand while working there.went to CO. for a visit with my sis and charlie to learn the basics. came back to michigan bought my first setup and 15yrs later im still here. :)

i love the versatility of the medium more then anything. i also love that it always keeps you on your toes. its been pretty amazing to watch this industry appear from no where and become what it has. cant wait to see where we go with the next 15 :)

my 70 years old mom wanted to do something with glass, so in 2006 my sister and I gave her a beginner workshop beadmaking. A bit scared she didn´t want to go alone so I went with her and this workshop got me hooked on working with torch, and hot glass! love the color of hot glass. at first I made beads but mostly sculptural work now and soon I will be moving up to working with tubing as well.

I saw some dudes making simple spoons in eugene back in '97 i think it was and had love for it from then on. i didnt start until breaking my ankle and kneecap in '02 though. Amazing the paths life leads you down.....

I've always had a love for glass work, and I just really enjoy making hand crafted items and glass is a wonderfully frustrating medium that I just happened to be lucky enough to work with...about a year ago, I met someone with a lot of talent and skill, that saw how fascinated I was with this line of work and was willing to teach me the basics...started out just watching for hours and asking questions every so often...then learned safety and gas line and ventilation and finally after a month or so was lucky enough to get behind a torch....life seemed to take a drastic change of direction after that day...and I've never even thought about glancing back