Watch more Glassblowing for Beginners videos: www.howcast.com/videos/465881-History-of-Glassblowing-Glassblowing



Hello, my name is Todd Hansen. We're here at the Art of Fire Contemporary Glass Blowing Studio in Laytonsville, Maryland. We're at www.artoffire.com. I've been a glass blower for about twelve years now. I've got several different lines of glasswork that I work on, and I'll be talking to you about glass blowing. Historically, glass blowing's been around for at least, or glass working, has been around for at least thirty-five hundred years in various forms. It's thought that the first merchants who sailed around the Mediterranean were the ones to actually love glass. They would build their campfires when they would pull their boats on shore and build their fires to cook and they'd set their pots on blocks of natria or sodium. In certain locations, the glass, the sand underneath them was just right, the fire would be hot enough that it would melt the natria a little bit and the chemical reaction would actually form little streams of glass flowing down from underneath the pots. Some of them smart enough to figure out how that could be done on a repeatable basis, small solid forms were made. Around two thousand years ago the Romans were basically - I think the Romans are pretty well credited with really industrializing glass blowing, they gave us the two-bladed jacks that are so versatile to glass blowers now. They really industrialized the glass blowing process, made it more accessible for the common folk. Here in the US, around the sixties, the early sixties, the studio art glass movement became re-energized. Prior to that time, glass blowers were working in factories, but with small batches of glass and smaller furnaces, glass blowers were able to take their work into their own studios and do their own designs and creations. And now what we have, with the results of Harvey Littleton, Dominic Lubino, and those folks who started that movement, we have studios around the country and individual artists being able to create their own work.

1. Introduction to Glassblowing
2. What Tools Do You Need?
3. How to Find a Class
4. How to Find a Job
5. How to Pick a Kit
6. How to Rent a Studio
7. Where Is the Best Glassblowing Museum?
8. How Much Do Glassblowing Artists Make?
9. Is Glassblowing School Necessary?
10. How to Use a Blow Pipe
11. 6 Tips, Tricks & Techniques
12. How to Shape Glass
13. 4 Glory Hole Tips
14. How to Use Puffers & Steam Sticks
15. How to Use Tweezers to Shape Glass
16. How to Use Jacks & Pacioffis
17. How to Use Diamond & Straight Shears
18. How to Get Started
19. History of Glassblowing
20. What is Glass Art?
21. History of Handblown Glass
22. Can Glassblowing Be Done at Home?
23. Glassblowing Safety
24. How Hot Does the Glass Get?
25. How to Pick Supplies
26. How to Dress for Class
27. How to Marver Glass
28. How to Decorate Handblown Glass
29. How to Use Newspaper as Heat Protection
30. How to Handle Hot Handblown Glass
31. How to Handle Fallen Molten Glass
32. How to Color Handblown Glass
33. How to Use Blocks & Paddles
34. How to Blow Glass with Todd Hansen
35. How to Blow Glass with Ed Donovan

Learn about glassblowing from pros Todd Hansen and Ed Donovan in these Howcast videos.