The Glass hotshop : Where the magic happens

“Molten glass is so magical, it takes your breath away. The white glow of heat transitioning to the most vivid orange is the closest to the burning sun in the sky a human can cold in his hands. “

Pia Wüstenberg, designer at Utopia & utility

Glass making | Czechia

The glass that combines our pieces is always mouth blown, and most is made in Bohemia in Czechia.
This region has an old tradition and inherited skills in mould -blowing glass and this allows us to make both small and large scale pieces accurately.
In this process a wooden mould is made with the desired shape, and hot glass is blown into this mould until it is cool enough to keep the shape. This is cooled in an annealer, and cut and polished.

For our free-hand blown collections we work with a hotshop specialised in art glassware in the rolling hills of Wiltshire , UK.

You can tell the difference between mould -blown and freehand -blown glass by the edge of the glass:

• Mould-blown glass has a flat and sharp edge

• Freehand- blown glass has a round and soft edge

Bench Work | UK

Blown glass is a process of gathering molten glass on an iron pipe, on which it is shaped by hand and blown out into a wooden mould. When the glass is blown out, it takes on the shape of the outer mould, thus allowing us to control and reproduce again and again the same shape.
All mould blown glass is left to cool in an oven to control the stress in the material and coldworked (cut and polished) into its final shape.

Glass is a liquid form of sand mixed with other elements to enhance its properties. A natural material that varies in colour and density. Small individual bubbles or formations of bubbles are inherent to the craft process of making glass (cooking sand effectively) . This is the nature of craft glass, and we celebrate this quality.

The perception that bubbles are a flaw is a dated one, in the contemporary world where perfection equals industrial quality the appearance of stubborn material qualities (like glass forming bubbles) is a mark of authenticity.