Glass Glows in Brooklyn

December 04, 2008

While I continued to wade neck deep in the waters of coding, Joanna and her friend Melody kept up our weekly crafting tradition by taking a tour of Brooklyn's world renowned Urban Glass.

Several times a year, Urban Glass throws open their doors and invites the public to come into their gigantic warehouse of a workshop. We decided to take advantage of this sometwhat rare event to get a look at how modern crafters work with an art form that's thousands of years old.

The tour began in the Urban Glass gallery which had on display works made in their space by local and visiting artists from around the world. As we walked around the shop we learned what goes into creating intricate work like the eyeballs I found sitting randomly on the counter in the mold shop. The highlight of the tour was the glassblowing demo by two local craftsmen. The demo was both awesome and scary--my favorite combination. While the artists shaped glass that was well over 1,100 degrees and smoking our guide provided detailed explanations of each step in the process. When my eyes weren't glued to what was happening in front of me, they were wandering over the furnaces that melt 2,000 pounds of glass daily.

For $15 each we got to play in the cold room, trying our hands at making designs on a beer mug and champagne flute and then sandblasting them. If you've got a lot of change jangling around in your pocket and you're interested in creating something spectacular, Urban Glass offers private lessons, classes and weekend workshops.