Blenko

At the beginning of the summer, our group visited Blenko in Milton, WV.  What a treasure we have in our own backyard!  While there we had the opportunity to make two water pitchers and a candy dish.  It was a wonderful experience!  My favorite activity was making the water pitcher.  

To begin, one of the workers would gather the glass on a blowpipe.

Next, he would bring it to our chair where we would shaped it in a tool that looked like a large wooden ladle.  

We would roll it back and forth and the glass would take on the rounded shape of the ladle.

Then we would blow a tiny puff of air into the blowpipe so as to open up the glass.

After opening it a bit, we brought it over to another station and placed it in a mold.

Then we would have to blow a lot of air through the blowpipe to make the glass take the shape of the pitcher mold.

Then we would break the blowpipe from the pitcher and take the pitcher from the mold.

One of the workers then put the pitcher into another furnace to heat the top so it would be pliable enough to make the spout.

When it had been heated enough, we used a metal tool to smooth the top and form spouts on each side of the opening.

After adding the spout, we had one final step...placing the pitcher in the annealing furnace.  Four hours later, it would come out on the other side.

A few days later, we got to bring our pitchers home.  They are a beautiful work of art!