SCGlassStudio

"As I was sleeping I dreamt of a new technique that made it so I could control every important aspect of construction, thus allowing me to make any celestial object I wanted."

I guess my full time career working with borosilicate glass started a little more than 22 years ago, but previous to that glass was more of a hobby. I was experimenting with soda lime glass (soft glass) beads and a few marbles here and there. All I had was a small torch and no kiln, so I wasn't able to anneal anything and majority of the things I made cracked. It was more playing around than anything else.

At the time I worked primarily as a maintenance person at a fancy bed and breakfast in Charlotte NC. I was in charge of maintaining the buildings, but after time I also was tasked with maintaining areas on the one acre property. At some point I was asked to rebuild a fountain in the center of the formal garden. Thus began my foray into building water features. I started my own business a short time later with the focus being on small ponds, waterfalls and Japanese style rock gardens. I had my heart set on doing this for many years, but as some of you might know life doesn't always abide by our wishes and desires. Soon after my first couple contracts word came from Pennsylvania, where I was originally from, my mother was in bad health. So my wife and myself moved back to PA to help her and my grandmother. The timing was bad as it was fall and not many people are looking to have water gardens installed. It was a big disappointment to come to the realization that it would not be a viable option anymore. Also it became evident that I needed to find something I could do that would allow me to be at home the majority of time and make money because I needed to help My mother and grandmother. After a couple weeks of deliberation my cousin suggested I start back up with glass. He explained to me that a lot of people were starting to collect borosilicate glass and some glassblowers were making a good amount of money.

So in the fall of 2002 I bought a small kiln, a few tools and some borosilicate glass, built a studio and got to it. YouTube tutorials were not an option at that time and it was mostly experimenting and mistake making, haha! I found a book Contemporary Lampworking and a VHS tape. Yes, a VHS tape! After a couple months I was making salable items, but I still had to work a part time construction job. As time went on I got better and sold more. I always tried to do what other people weren't. For one reason, out of respect, and two because it is a lot easier to be seen if your work stands out. I think it is a necessity for artist and crafts people just starting out. It will be harder and probably take a little longer but the payoff is multiples higher.

Fast forward to 2010 or so. I went to visit ceramist friend about borrowing a tool. We got to talking and he offered me some silver nitrate and a few chemicals that he used in his glazes. He told me to try these things on the surface, but not to put anything IN the glass because it would be incompatible and the glass would more than likely fail. Well, me being me put each thing in the glass. Nothing looked good until I got to the silver nitrate. To my surprise the silver balled up into tiny spheres that resembled stars to me. I continued to explore this new material over the next few months and made a lot of progress inventing some techniques no one had done before. But, it was still missing something to hit the level of realism I was trying to achieve. I can still remember as if it were yesterday. One night I was laying in bed running what I'd been working on through my mind and fell asleep. As I was sleeping I dreamt of a new technique that made it so I could control every important aspect of construction, thus allowing me to make any celestial object I wanted. The next day I almost couldn't wait to get to the studio to try the tech that I had dreamt of. Well guess what? It worked, in fact it worked even better than in my dream and I was off to the races.

In 2011 I opened my Etsy shop. Etsy was different then, I think mainly due to it being smaller and as a consequence easier to be seen. Also Etsy was, or at least seemed to be, 100% handmade items from artists and crafts people. I realized if I posted new items regularly I would sell much more. Life was really hard for me and my family in that time period. I can remember praying for help one night, and I kid you not, I woke up the next day with a message from Etsy that they were going to make me a featured seller in December 2011.

I think I'm going to leave it there for now and I thank you for listening to a portion of my story.