I’m an artist who works with glass – here’s how the physics and chemistry of glassblowing work
From colorful orbs to delicate spirals, heating and manipulating glass allows artists to create beautiful translucent sculptures.
Artists working with glass at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) employ the material in its molten form within a studio called the Glass Hot Shop. Carlos Ortiz/RIT highlights the contradictory nature of glass, which can be both fragile and strong, opaque and transparent, rough and smooth. This studio environment is immersive, complex, seductive, and demanding.
The ambiance includes the sounds of glass breaking, hot metal being quenched, rolling pipes, and music, as well as the smells of hot beeswax, burning newspaper, the weight of waste glass under one's shoe, intense heat from furnaces, and a breeze from a fan.
To work with glass, artists must understand and apply principles of physics and chemistry. The RIT glass program primarily uses two types of glass. Soft glass is formulated for melting in a furnace, melting at 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,204 degrees Celsius). Flameworking glass, known as Pyrex, is heat-resistant, melts at a higher temperature, and arrives preformed as rods in the flameworking studio.
Glass is an amorphous solid with molecules arranged in a random pattern and no sharp melting point. Instead, it softens over a wide temperature range. Artists heat their glass in furnaces to maintain a workable heat zone, typically between 1,100 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (593 and 1,094 Celsius). When cooled below this range, the glass appears solid but remains dynamic and acts more like a liquid at the molecular level.
Gathering glass from the furnace onto a metal rod is the initial step in shaping and transforming the material. Artists must decide on the design, moving the glass between reheating chambers and the bench to manipulate it. Glassblowing is a collaborative effort, involving physical and intellectual support from colleagues. When creating a basic clear tumbler, artists consider factors such as weight, lip thickness, and bottom thickness.
Collaboration is crucial, as artists often work together, sharing breath, protection, and additional glass from the furnace to refine their creations.
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