Wonderful article in the Wall Street Journal on glass blower Davide Salvadore.
Davide Salvadore stands near the center of the Kent State University “hot shop,” or glassmaking facility, raising a long, steel blowpipe to his lips to inflate the glass “bubble” at its end. The stocky Italian artist has just started to demonstrate the blown-glass component of his decorative musical-instrument sculptures to an audience of students and potential collectors. “No matter how many times I do this,” he tells a colleague before he begins, “I get nervous.” No wonder. A finite amount of time exists for each step of the process. He and his assistants must concentrate intensely to avoid a host of mishaps. If the molten glass bubble gathered from the blazing furnace cools too much, the glass will shatter. If one separately blown component of an object is hotter than another, they will not fuse together successfully; cracks will become visible once the piece has cooled. For every piece successfully completed, two fail to meet Mr. Salvadore’s exacting standards. – from WSJ