What item got you into glass

[Aussie]

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!

[Aymie]

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.

[CripSkillz]

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..

[Shiny]

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.

[shade]

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

[Aymie]

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."

[The Lorax]

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

[Smoke]

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.

[Uriel]

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!

[berning]

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!!!

[Boss]

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...

[full_kiln]

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

[3rdI]

thataintart.com

[RamblezMarblez]

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

[vetropod]

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

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"?

[hippi]

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...

[Boxcutter]

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.

[slave]

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.

[Lub]

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

[madpup]

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