Written By Scott Braden
When the doors are opened at the Art of Fire Contemporary Glass Studio and Gallery in Laytonsville, one almost expects to see hay and farm animals inside. That is because the studio is located in a renovated barn: a building whose owner has traded the farm environment for living art – colorful, glittering works, including unique Christmas tree ornaments, forged from fire. And beyond the ornaments lies the “Hot Shop,” where a number of glassblowers brave the heat and use flame to produce unique glassware.
“It’s the studio proper,” said manager Todd Hansen. “We’ve got a total of four work stations, and a furnace that runs 24/7. The furnace can take 350 pounds of molten glass when it’s full.
“The four work stations, which are called glory holes, are reheating furnaces. It’s where you can decorate the glass.”
According to Hansen, the glass comes out of the furnace at a working temperature of about 2,500 degrees. At around 1,500 degrees the glass stiffens up, so a glassblower must constantly put his or her piece back into the glory hole to return it to a working temperature. Then the glassblower must bring it to the bench and shape it, reheat it, and shape it again. It is a step-by-step process until the creation is finished. At the end, the artist places the piece in the annealer so it will slowly cool overnight.
Hansen, who hails from Westminster, is a former navigator on C-130s in the U.S. Air Force. He was brought on board in 1998 when his mother, Theda, and her husband, Foster Holcombe, first moved the Art of Fire studio to their five-acre Laytonsville home, where it is currently located. Other in-house artists are Josh Ries, Bruce Ferguson, Keith Daly, and Heather Rowe. Holcombe and Hansen are co-owners, Ries, Ferguson and Daly are instructors and Rowe is an intern.
“It’s a family business,“ said Hansen. “My mother and her husband have run this business for almost 25 years. When I was home on leave, I’d come and visit, practice and play around with the furnace. When they expanded, they asked me if I would come work for them. I had the aptitude for it.
“The Art of Fire used to be at Savage Mill in Savage, Maryland, and at that time it was a really small, two-person operation.”
“We moved because we owned [the current studio building] and we didn’t own Savage Mill,” said Theda Hansen. “We’d rather pay our mortgage than pay rent. Also, the (Savage Mill) studio wasn’t able to accommodate our classes. There were many things that we wanted to do, but the studio was too small. Our current studio gives us more opportunities – and we own it.”
“Our classes are held from September through June,” said Hansen. ”We offer classes on Saturday and Sunday mornings, as well as Wednesday evenings.”
Hansen explained that the majority of his fellow artists were once Art of Fire students.
“Almost everybody who’s come through here (as an employee) has been a student of ours,” he said. “We get homegrown people; individuals who take classes and find out that they are really interested in glassblowing. Then, they come back and hang out, looking for something to do, begging for something to do.
“Before you know it, they are helping us with production work, and not long after, they’re starting to make things. There are plenty of people who want to try glassblowing, but there are few people who can really do it and make it effective. We’re lucky enough to have people who are really sharp and have helped us out quite a bit.”
Although the outside of Art of Fire looks like a working barn, just inside is a gallery, filled with unusual items for sale.
”People are amazed at the amount of color, shape, and variety (of glass) we have,” said Hansen. “Then they take a few steps further in, and they see that we have more than just glass. We have a mix of things: ceramics, jewelry, and fabrics.
“We go to two or three shows each year where we sell to vendors around the country. While we’re selling our work to retail outlets, we’re also looking for things to put in our studio. So we mix and match (ceramics and jewelry) with the glassware in the gallery. It adds to the flavor.”
The fabrics, on the other hand, are part of the family business. “My mother-in-law is a big knitter,” said Hansen, “so we have some of her scarves in our shop, too.”
Among the many wares that Art of Fire makes, including vases, pitchers, decanters, stemware, and others, are their stunning Christmas ornaments. Priced from $24 to $50, the basic line of ornaments includes cane balls, Christmas balls, dragons, faceted hummingbird feeders, faceted optic balls, optic Christmas ornaments, orbs, and roundels.
“I’ve done a line of clear glass ornaments with an iridizing spray on them,” said Hansen. “My wife really likes that. Iridizing spray is something that you coat the glass with, and it gives the ornament a translucent rainbow pattern. You’ve got the ornament’s base color behind it, but at the same time you’ve got a prism effect. That’s what iridizing does.“
“Instead of doing simple, round ornaments,” said Hansen, “I’ve also tried creating different shapes with funkier patterns to them: teardrops and things like that. Sometimes, when you’re doing something over and over again, you get an idea of how to make the ornament look different. The monotony inspires you to make the ornament look a little more flashy.”
Hansen said all of the studio’s artists create ornaments. Each piece takes about five or six minutes to make. According to Hansen, each artist can produce about 36 ornaments a day.
“If we’re making ornaments,” Hansen said, “three dozen a day is pretty normal. Usually, if you do something like that for half a day, it gets tedious and monotonous. By lunch, you are ready for something new. You can get close to three dozen ornaments in the morning if you’re really humping it. You’re making them pretty quick because you have to. The way our overhead is, the faster you work, the more efficient you are. You don’t get your profits eaten up by fuel.”
Whether he’s making ornaments or something else, at the end of the day, Hansen enjoys what he does.
“I enjoy my work because of the freedom I have to design and create my own pieces,” said Hansen. “I like making something with my hands, and it makes me happy that other people like my work enough to buy it and display it at home or give it as a gift. Also, it’s rewarding to work with students and see them succeed at glassblowing.“
