March - The North Star Monthly

8 The north Star Monthly March 2006Glassblowing datesBack 2000 Years to theSilk roadTerrY HOFFerHarry Besset is an artist and anhistorian. He’s a glassblower, andworking with his wife, Wendy, intheir studio above the village ofHardwick they make strikingexamples of an ancient art.Glassblowing is an old traditionwith rough studios, as theyare, still marking the 2,000-yearold path of the Silk Road throughthe Middle East into China. TheEgyptians worked with glass inthe 4th Century BC, but somewherebetween the fringes of theRoman Empire and the wayfaringmerchants seeking spices and silk,someone discovered that sand andlime could be heated as moltenglass and blown, or literally inflated,with a thin metal tube. At thatmoment, estimated at about 50BC, the shapes for jars and othervessels became far greater thanthey were with the conventionalmeans of molding glass over aremovable core of mud or dung,and blown glass found applicationsin holding exotic perfumesand ointments or even such ordinarysubstances as tea.For nearly two thousand yearsglassblowing evolved slowlyunder the roofs of factories surroundedby forests for fuelingtheir fires and with designers mostoften giving directions to skilledfactory laborers who made mostof the products. Glass blowingbecame high art, and “glass houses”guarded their secrets of materialsand technique.In 1851 the Great Exhibitionof the Industry of all Nations orthe first World’s Fair in Londonfeatured a gigantic buildingknown as the Crystal Palace,300,000 panes of glass covering20 acres of exhibits. Automationand the industrial process were infull bloom, and glass appeared asdrinking glasses, butter dishes,flower vases and all sorts ofhousehold ornamentation.These layered glass vases and orbs have a inner dreamlike landscapes with pastures and fields leadingto the distant rugged horizon and spectacular sky and cloud formations beyond.Photo By: North Star MonthlyHarry Besset turns and carefully shapes a layered glass vase stillglowing from the high temperature furnace.The market for glass washuge, and industrial glass makingsoared to meet the demand, butthere was no way the art could bea cottage craft. The scale and thecost of the equipment and facilitieswere enormous until a revolutionoccurred in the 1960’s. HarryBesset describes it as an offshootof the space age. The same technologythat gave us ceramic tilesused as heat shields on reenteringspace shuttles allowed for the productionof small scale andportable furnaces. Glass artistswhere suddenly freed from theconfines of a factory and able tocreate studios of their own - “anywhere,”Harry says, “that could bereached by the propane truck andthe UPS.”For the first time in its longhistory glassblowers could jointhe ranks of weavers, potters,woodworkers, jewelry makers,blacksmiths and basket makers. Aglassblower could take the craftalmost anywhere. The designerwas the glassblower and the glassblowercould have a significantsay in the design of the finishedproduct. The studio glass movementwas born, and almostovernight small scale glassblowingstudios were appearing farfrom their traditional settings.And it’s that studio movementthat allowed Harry and WendyBesset to develop their expertiseand today, as he says, “ride itswave.” While the industry wasonce highly secretive, Harry says,there is a powerful sense of communityas individuals and theirtechniques travel the world. Todaythe studio movement, and with itinnovation and creativity, isemerging at a level that couldnever have been imagined whenstandardization and mass productionwere what the marketrequired.The winter cold is upon usonce again. Come on in tothe Coop and we'll warmand cheer you up.We've got the bestORgANIC PRODUCEsection full of freshscrumptious goodies to fillyour needs.Eat Well, Eat Healthy,Feel Better!!Vermont baked breadsdelivered four days aweek! Make it a point tocome in and sign up forour weekly e-mailnewsletter. It’s free!Anyone can shop,member or not.Open: Mon - Wed & Sat 9-6Thurs & Fri 9-7; Sundays 11-4Member or Not, Anybody Can Shop490 Portland StreetSt. Johnsbury VT(802) 748-9498