Finally, a cat! This is Lea and she’s a sweetheart.
We spent the day at Ana’s workplace, the glass factory KostaBoda. It’s like a small village that has the factory, a galleries, shops selling the glassware, a small shopping mall, restaurants, a spa and a hotel. We looked around the other areas while waiting for Ana to have a slot in her schedule to do glassblowing with us.
It was a great experience! It goes very quickly as the glass only has a short window before it cools too much. Plus there are other people waiting for their slots. Ana did a wonderful job demonstrating and explaining the process – really just an introduction as there’s so much to this art. We’ll pick up our pieces later as they need time to cool.
The factory is huge. A lot of people are on vacation now though, so the factory wasn’t too active.The blow your own glass workshop. Ana is helping a girl in the back.The furnace where you dip the initial blob of glass (I forgot the correct term)Colors you can add to your pieceAnother hearty buffet lunch. I might turn into a potato!The gallery – lots of amazing pieces here.These are by one of the 3rd year students at the school where Ana studied.Most of the clear glass “rejects” get recycled (but they don’t reuse glass at this factory as their standards for impurities are too high). Colored glass generally can’t get recycled, but some is used by other artists.We checked out the museum on site that details the history of the glass industry here – since 1742!There was a music room!“I found this in grandma’s attic; how much is it worth?”Glass trumpet!This is an iron that heated hair curlers! Yikes!The weather was crazy all day. Sometimes bright and sunny, sometimes rainy – or about to rain. Sometimes sunny AND rainy. But never more than about 58°… ahhhh….Using an air compressor to cool the glass slightlyPutting the glass into a moldRolling and shaping (and getting ready to attach a punty)This is a special oven that cools the glass relatively rapidly (in about 3 hours). Most other handmade glass takes longer to cool.Swedish sushi!
