Glass blowing artist Paul Harrie merges age-old methods with modern materials to fashion extraordinary glass pieces. Since this craft originated in ancient Mesopotamia, the method of melting and the quality of glass have been altered with time but the basic technique has remained unchanged.
To create hand-blown glass, a sand mixture is heated to approximately 2400 degrees to melt it into a liquid form, which is then blown and shaped by special tools, hardwood shaping blocks and gravity. To produce colors, rare earth oxides are mixed into the base glass during the shaping process.
Striped glass, based on a method popular prior to the fourteenth century, is created by covering a block of colored glass with a layer of clear glass. The block is then reheated and stretched to a length of 100 feet or more until it is distorted to a pencil-size length of glass. This long, thin piece of glass is broken into toothpick lengths of colored glass sticks, which are then set in a mold and incorporated into the glass design.
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