Welcome to the Hot Shop where we blow glass. Here you can see the furnaces (Glory Hole) and the cruciable where the glass is kept in a molten state.

This is the cruciable with the clear molten glass. You have to wear sunglasses when you open the door and get glass out of it or you can't see anything but bright orange.

I've gathered up some clear glass and am now heating it up so I can add color to it.

These furnaces are called 'the glory hole' because of the glow from the hot lining inside. These run about 2000 degrees inside.

Notice how everyone is wearing sunglasses all the time. That's pretty normal, as most of the time you're looking into a glowing box or staring at glowing glass.

Closeup of hot glass with color chips melted into it. This is what gives a vase its color.

Audry shapes her colored glass into the bulb shape we start blowing from.

The large wooden spoon is kept soaking in a bucket of water so it won't catch on fire when we use it on the glass.

I've finished shaping my glass blob, which will turn dark blue and lime green when it cools, believe it or not.

Next is blowing the bubble in.

Audry shapes the glass with a large bubble blown into it. Next we stretch the glass and start adding detail points.

I'm shaping the hot glass with giant tweezers called 'Jacks'. This will be a tall vase with a rounded bottom when we're done.

Other tools like shears and wooden padels are set near the bench.

More shaping. Shane holds the pipe end up so the glass will stretch while I add the jack line.

The jack line I'm working on in the photo will be the break off point when we transfer the glass.

Shane blows while I control the bubble in the middle and shape the area that will become the foot on the bottom of the vase.

Putting the glass away to cool slowly.

This is a bank of annealing boxes (ovens) against the wall. Glass has to cool over a 24 hour period or it breaks.

The glass we did today will be ready to pick up at next week's class.