Glass - Glass art  

i am
an experienced glassblower and also have some experience and/or a working knowledge of most other techniques (pate de verre, fusing, slumping, sand casting etc). hopefully this spring i will have the opportunity to sit in on a class for technical glassblowing as well (making scientific wares).

Congratulations!
You are an expert on the subject!
By my side, In the beginning the relationship with glass was by chance, now I go to mid- big factories and ask them to make me something (or buy already made pieces) and then sand it (if it,s not better with acid-satinated-), and then drill it, and/or then cut it and/or then paint it , and or anything and with most of them I make the lamp shades, and then the lightfixture, or a vase or anything.
About blowning, I always wanted to go to a blownglass class, but it,s on Saturdays, and that,s the day of hard work at the shop, So I,ll have to wait by now.

where do you live?
i am curious because there are no glass factories here in wisconsin usa that produce that kind of ware. the closest one is a float (window) glass factory. the producers of blown work anywhere near are individual craft artists (i work for one).

Glass areas
Which are the glass areas?
Such as the Murano area in Italy, for example?
Here Berazategui is known as "capital of glass". It's about 70miles(100km) away from Buenos Aires. Main Strret is called Rigolleau as main Factory. There are some factories and lots of workshops.
What about the US, any specific area?

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Ha ha
I was just typing at the same time than you. I,ll think a bit more, and I,ll come back at night with other things to coment.

there
is stuben in corning, new york and blenko and fenton in west virginia. those are all at least 12 hours drive away for me. most of our glassblowing factories have long ago died at the hands of industrialization and globalization. sad.

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I,m also curious about what you said, so you work for an individual craft artist. I think that must be good for doing anything you or customer want, I think. More individualist, more specific, and more expensive so? Which is the size of the oven? How many people work with you?
I have heard here that to maintain the oven working it,s need too much gas (here work at gas, it,s not expensive for small home use, but the quantity they use is so big, that the bill they pay I heard are astronomic, There ovens work at gas also?)
Do you blown with or without a mold, in general? What kind of pieces do you do? Vases?sculptures?

so many questions!
i work in two areas. one i make my own works which are abstract sculpture. for work, we have a line of vases, bowls, ornaments and a couple of other things that we make that are my bosses designs. it is not a custom design shop so we dont stray from our program much. he has a 150 lb. electric pot furnace, one gas glory hole and several electric annealers. it is basically a one or two person shop which is typical for a craft artist making glass in this country. and yes it is expensive!