Glass Blowing at Orbix

Three girlfriends and I drove up to Fort Payne, Alabama to visit Orbix Hot Glass gallery and do glass blowing. We took the ornament class, so my friends will be using theirs in their decorations, and I have mine in a Nambe bowl (the silver makes the glass look even better) in the dining room. I actually already have a couple of these glass orbs from Cal Breed when he used to display and sell them at Kentuck, so these are a great addition.

We had some time to shop in the gallery before we started:

Orbix Hot Glass: Glass Ornament Blowing Class

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This board shows what the different glass colors will look like

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While other objects have the participants actually going up to the furnaces and doing more of the process, for this class, we were doing the super-easy part. Here, Cal has taken the hot glass and is rolling it to pick up colors

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Once he puts it back in the fire and has the initial form right, he sits and forms it while instructing us on how much air to force through the pipe — this is my first orb
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Next he releases it from the pipe and puts on a dab more glass so as to make a circle curl so it can hang. Next, it goes into a warmer to anneal, then it can be shipped the next day.