BOISE, Idaho — Boise Art Glass teaches people how to take molten glass and turn it into a variety of one-of-a-kind pieces from cups and vases, to soap dispensers and oil bottles.
- The studio offers a range of hands-on classes where you can learn skills like glassblowing and flameworking firsthand.
- Classes can be booked online at boiseartglass.com.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
"I'm gonna use this wooden block here to help me shape it," said Filip Vogelpohl. "Glass is one of those mediums that you will never perfect the entire time that you're doing it."
Vogelpohl is the owner at Boise Art Glass.
"And the challenge of it all really appealed to me," Vogelpohl added.
He fell in love with using glass as a medium for art 28 years ago.
"There's so much magic in glass and it's so cool and it's such an awesome medium that you will never get tired," Vogelpohl said.
He tells me he opened his downtown glassblowing studio about 20 years ago, bringing this unique art form to the people of Boise.
"You know, you can't go anywhere and blow glass, it's very rare that you find a facility where you can come in off the street and make a cup or a vase," says Vogelpohl.
And that is exactly what I did — I got to learn how to blow molten glass into a custom cup complete with the color and design of my choosing.
"So right here I'm gonna make a little bit of pressure blows into tube I'm sealing the air in the pipe and then I allow the heat to do the work for me," explained Austin Grill, a glass blowing instructor at Boise Art Glass.
First things first, it starts with clear molten glass from a furnace. Then you add colored pieces of glass to the mixture, allowing the heat to incorporate the colors.
Glass is the most workable when it is hot so, after reheating my glob of glass, we began the process of shaping my cup through a combination of rolling, stretching, cutting and blowing, before breaking off the final piece.
Then it goes into a kiln to cool down gradually.
Classes offer a creative, hands-on opportunity to create cups, vases, ornaments and more.
"By the time they leave here they are just about jumping up and down with excitement about the piece they just made," says Vogelpohl. "I think art is important for humanity in general. It's soothing. It's healing. It's meditative, it's just a really great medium to immerse yourself in for an hour, or for your lifetime."
