Front page · Cosyford Glass & Pottery
Hot stuff: inside the little glassblowing studio on the high street
Gather a glowing gob from the furnace, roll in the colours, then sit at the bench and blow it into a bauble, a bowl, a bottle, a vase or a plate.
Orders come in on the phone and through the letterbox: a bauble in red and gold, a green vase, a bowl for the fruit. Hold the blowpipe in the roaring furnace to gather a glowing gob, and let go when the gauge is in the green. Tap the colour jars and roll it on the steel marver until the colours swirl in.
Then sit at the gaffer's bench and roll the pipe back and forth along its long arms. Hot glass sags, so stop rolling and it droops! Opal blows down a hose while you work: stop just before the dotted outline, because it keeps growing a moment after. Pinch a neck with the jacks, roll it fast to open out a bowl, or spin it so fast it flattens into a plate.
Knock it off and Opal catches it, cools it slowly in the annealing oven, and boxes it up for whoever ordered it. Opal Hartley reckons she can blow a bauble with her eyes shut. We did not ask her to prove it.
In the corner there is a potter's wheel too, and about half the orders are for pots. Hold to centre the clay as it spins, then drag to pull it up into a mug, a bowl or a vase. A mug gets a handle, a vase gets its neck squeezed in, and then it is glazed in the colours on the order and fired in the kiln.
