February 24, 2005

Creating works of fragile beauty

By Cindy Blankenship
For the Tidings

For glassblower Candice Barnard who works in a studio with a furnace blasting at 2100 degrees Fahrenheit, her reward, besides the completed work of art, is the natural high that is part of the process.

"The environment is very dangerous … working around heat and with limited time gets your endorphins going. It's almost like an adrenaline rush. It's very energizing. And everyday I do something different," Barnard says.

Barnard's soft glassblown art includes large fluted bowls (her favorites) and a large, classic piece in the window at Ashland's Blue Heron Gallery. Her hummingbird feeders are among her best selling pieces, and she also creates wine glass and carafe sets, perfume vials, paperweights and Christmas ornaments.

When working - she's taking a hiatus while caring for her babies, two-year-old Jake, and Reed, just born Feb. 15 - Barnard found that she preferred the night shift.

In the summer time, the shop got up to 135, so she began working 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. in her then Mountain Top Glass Work studio where the open bay door provided a view of the night sky.

"I actually enjoyed it. It was romantic, working under the stars. It was very peaceful and cooler," Barnard says.

While working alone is not common for a soft glass blower, Barnard says being the first soft glass blower in the area meant assistants weren't readily available.

"I built my shop with little tricks to help me work alone. I've found I enjoy the solitude."

The glass blowing process calls for steady rhythm of movement, control, balance, timing and sensitivity.

"The first five years when you're learning you really pay your dues with burns (from hot rods, not the molten glass, one risk glassblowers never take)," says Barnard.

First the glass (comprised of ash, sand and lime) is melted down to a liquid state in a kiln. Gathering the molten glass on the end of a five-foot stainless steel pipe, Barnard introduces air into the center of the gather through the blowpipe, using various tools and a high level of dexterity to shape the molten glass.

"The process is very similar to trying to keep a glob of honey on a toothpick … you have to keep it twirling," says Barnard, using the analogy she includes in her demonstration for school children.

Colors in the form of metal oxides, such as magnesium for purple, are her palette. Working the opening of the piece, such as the top of a vase, she achieves the shape she wants and then knocks it off onto the pontil, a solid rod glassblowers call the punty.

As it cools, the glass must be reheated at about 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit in an open cylindrical chamber, called the "glory hole" (because of its bright glow). Barnard can then return to shaping and blowing until the desired result is achieved.

Even with using a torch to even out the heating of the piece, which heats more on the end entering the chamber, Barnard has about an hour and a half tops to complete the piece before reheating compromises the work.

Once she has the piece how she wants it, she transfers it to the annealer, a smaller furnace that will gradually bring the temperature of the glass work down to room temperature.

Her creation is now out of her hands. The cooling down process takes 8 to 10 hours. If it wasn't heated evenly during its creations, it may crack.

"You put your blood and sweat and time and burns into it, and then you wait. My husband, Seth, used to say my work is kind of like Christmas because I don't see the final product till the next day. I would run down like it was Christmas morning to see."

E-mail Barnard at highprairie@msn.com