Glasswork has been around for centuries and glassblowing as a technique was created in the middle of the 1st century BC. Glassblowing offered new lengths to glassworkers as it transformed the then well used and known techniques.
The two major techniques of glassblowing are free-blowing and mold-blowing
Free-blowing
Free-blowing has held its place as a widely used glassforming technique since the middle of the first century. The process of freeblowing involves the blowing of short puffs of air into a molten portion of glass called a "gather" wich has been spooled at one end of the blow pipe (see image above).
Skilled glassmakers are capable of shaping almost any vessel forms by rotating the pipe, swinging it and controlling the temperature of the piece while they blow. They can produce a great variety of glass objects.
Mold-Blowing
Mold-blowing was an alternative glassblowing method that came after the invention of free-blowing. A glob of molten glass is plaed on the end of the blowpipe, and is then inflated into a wooden or metal carved mold.
There are single piece molds and multi piece molds and these are used to produce different types of vessels.
The former alows a finished glass object to be removed by pulling it upwards and is usually for making tableware and utilitarian vesses. The latter is made in multi-paneled mold segments that join together, thus the design is more sophisticated.
Ippodo Gallery glass artists usually utilize the Free-blowing technique. To learn more about our artists and artworks in glass, please visit our artist page here.
Featured Artists: Laura de Santillana and Midori Tsukada
