Heart of glass Teacher tries to sustain an ancient art

SEDALIA, Mo. -- Glass -- its origins go back as far as time itself, when magma contained just the right mineral balance and cooled to create obsidian.

And then, someplace in a sandy desert, a fire burned hot enough to leave crystals of glass in the bed of ashes to be noticed by someone unknown, but with a large imagination.

To Shawn Harris, glass blowing is part of his passion for sculpting, a talent he came to unwillingly during his education as an art teacher at Emporia State University in Kansas.

Harris, 28, teaches sixth-grade art at the Sedalia Middle School and, on weekends, toils to improve his skill as a glass blower, able to take molten glass and turn it into an artistic treasure.

The end he dreams of is being able to use blown glass, rather than stone or clay, to create the sculpted works of art he envisions in his mind.

"We used to take breaks and do critiques on a patio between the sculpture workshop and the glass blowing workshop at Emporia," he said.

"I would look at those glowing furnaces and the molten glass being worked and say, 'No, sir. That's not for me.' Then I was coerced into taking one class in glass blowing and I fell in love with it," he said.

On weekends, now, he turns out treasures, large and small, which he sells at the Art Impressions Gallery in Sedalia.

Tools of the trade

From his instructor, Richard Stauffer, now retired from Emporia State, Harris learned the fundamentals of forming glass.

The tools he uses are a blowpipe to pick up molten glass and begin a bubble, a punty -- a 5-foot rod to attach to the far end of the piece when it's time to form the neck -- glass jacks to form and expand the opening, and fruitwood paddles and wads of wet newspaper to protect his bare hand as shapes the work.

He also learned how to use the fiery blast furnace to melt his batches and other glass techniques such as such as casting, bead making and shaping.

"Too hot, too cool, a tiny touch against the marver at the wrong time and the piece you're working on ends up shattered on the floor," Harris said.

The melting furnace operates at 2,100 degrees, turning a compound of white silica sand, soda ash and small amounts of other elements into a mass about the consistency of molasses. Harris buys white glass beads in bulk and chips of colored glass to add hues to the works.

He likens making a piece of glass art to conducting an orchestra: directing the constant blowing to expand a bubble, or the constant rolling of the punty while the piece is being formed, and depending upon one helper or more to assist him.

Starting with a small gather of molten glass and blowing a bubble, the glass blower will keep adding gathers until he has the size needed for the work. The blower then adds color, if desired.

A balancing act

Glass blowing is not for the faint of heart, what with temperatures that would melt metal and easily scorch skin. It's not for the weak, either, as a gather of glass can easily reach up to 15 pounds and, perched at the end of a 5-foot blow pipe or punty, can be quite hard to handle.

"We used to say in glass blowing class that we should get double credit for weightlifting, too," Harris said. "That's when it pays to know about fulcrums and balance. It's a delicate balancing act."