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Blowing
glass with the ROMEOs at Elias Studios. EverythingWestport.com Thursday, April 16, 2009 View
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The master glass blaster thoroughly entertained the ROMEOs on their April 19th visit to Elias’ studio with a glass blowing demonstration that was both compelling and inclusively instructional. The retired older men for once were speechless. And no small wonder. John Elias is a former college professor, holding a Master of Fine Arts in Glass from the Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Illinois. He gets his communication skills from his professorial experience but gets his theatrics from his artistic love affair with glass. He and his wife Jennie, also a teacher, have worked together since 1992 to create a line of colorful, blown glass ornaments, vases and jewelry. Their specialty is unique color combinations. John and Jennie Elias invited the ROMEOs into their inner sanctum where John and his assistant Ian Sylvia (also a glass artist) shared the secrets (well almost all their secrets) of hand blown glass. The mysteries of the molten silica unveiled themselves in the heat and glitter of the artisan’s workshop. “Each glass piece is hand blown using traditional techniques,” Jennie said. “A blowpipe is dipped into the pool of melted glass and rolled over bits of colored glass (frit). The piece is shaped and reheated until the desired form is achieved. Each piece is unique with variations in patterning and surface quality unlike any other.” “I use the assistance of a pneumatic air compressor,” John confessed. “Like blowing up fifty balloons, you’ll get light-headed real quick.” Elias Studio is a manufacturer of ornaments, vases and jewelry for distribution to retailers across the southern hemisphere. Production glass blowing puts more of a physical demand on the glass blower, but somehow John Elias never loses his artistic sensibilities. John Elias works on blown clear glass overlaid with colored glass (frit) on the outer surface “The best colored glass comes from Germany,” Elias told the ROMEOs. “The frit flows across the surface creating movement and rhythms, making each piece unique and allowing each viewer to find their own personal imagery within.”
The colorful frits are separated and held in scoops, reminiscent of a penny candy display in an old country store. The ROMEOs soon learned a glass blower is in constant motion. Turning the blowpipe while heating and shaping the molten glass, moving from kiln to metal table, rolling and shaping the glass, applying frit, reheating again, all the while blowing and expanding the glass into the desired shape in a super-heated environment extracts a price from the glass blower. At one point Elias was twirling the blowpipe with two pounds of melted glass attached like some baton-wielding parade marshal marching on Memorial Day. “Gravity works in one direction,” Elias observed. “We have to use centrifugal force to shape the glass.” It’s physically demanding; a veritable mass production line of glass ornaments. When you supply the world, you have to produce a lot of product. But behind every successful man is a good woman. Jennie holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from the Rhode Island School of Design and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Massachusetts. Together they strive to bring their love of glass, color and light to each piece, and hope that their clients will share their enthusiasm and passion for their art.
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John
Elias is first and foremost a showman.
“The dissimilar
melting points of the various colored frit adds a critical sensitivity to
hand blowing an ornament,” John said. The temperature ranges in the heating
process have to be adjusted to insure quality blending and natural
assimilation of the patterns in the ornaments.” 
