Working with an Assistant for Glassblowing

"Hi! I’m Jim McKelvey with Third Degree Glass Factory in St. Louis. You can check us out on the web at www.stlglass.com. Today, we’re going to learn about glassblowing for expertvillage.com. Well, if you’re working with a partner, which is something I’d really recommend, it’s usually better to have your partner blow while you shape the piece. So, with Fern down here on the end of the pipe, I can shape the piece and I just tell her when to blow. I’m going to say, “okay, blow please…a little bit harder…stop.” Now, if you don’t want to say stop, or it’s really urgent that you stop them, you can just give the pipe a little tug this way and pull it out of their mouth. I don’t encourage that, especially with beginners, because it can be a little scary for the person blowing at the end of the pipe; because they don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know what your intentions are. It’s usually easy just to tell them what’s going on. Using this method, you should be able to make a nice basic bubble, and that’s essentially the form we have here. It’s got good jack lines, the bottom is a little thick, and it’s basically this bubble shape. Now, this basic bubble can be converted into any of the 6 basic forms that I talk about in my book and DVD series. We’re going to do now a couple of variations with this basic bubble to show you those forms."