Rev. 2003-03-17, -08-30
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These pictures were taken in 1994 when Drew was in Houston. He has since moved his operation to the Northwest. I will use the present tense as if visiting the shop now.
The shop is a small one in a
somewhat weather beaten small industrial area of western Houston.
Because he works on a small scale, Drew has a pipe warmer, glory
hole and small 2 pot crucible furnace in which he normally only
melts clear Gabbert cullet and cobalt blue.
Drew makes millefiori weights,
either very formal ones, which sell in the $350-700 price range
or smaller informal ones which use the same cane, but in a
scattered pattern. This is his basic marver set up. The marble
slab is literally the source of the word marver from the Italian.
He puts his color bits on the marble. The cup in the middle of
the steel marver is one of the weight setup cups, another is on
the hot plate at the bottom of the picture. Each cup is a ring
with a matching disk having a machined groove to hold the ring in
place.
The millefiori cane are
set up at a work table in another room, carefully placed with
long tweezers. (For a clearer picture of a setup, look on my paperweights page.) The glass is
preheated to prevent it from shattering when the hot gather is
applied. The larger aluminum disk collects the heat from the
whole burner and protects the burner from dripped glass, which
damages the elements.
After
gathering the glass, on a pipe for the larger head, it is
carefully shaped like a bullet, and applied to the back of the
cane setup, centered and pressed to fill the cup.
Held over the marver, the
glass stretches slightly, and narrows, allowing the ring to fall
off.
At the bench, Drew begins
the process of shaping the weight. The layer of cane in the
bottom of the cup forms the light colored layer to the right of
the hot glass in the picture. A water soaked wooden block is used
to shape the glass. Several goals are in mind. The layer of color
must be even across the disk and perpendicular to the pipe. The
glass must be worked up and away from the end of the pipe so there
is space to jack it off the pipe without distorting the color.
A further gather of hot
glass is worked over the weight, and then another. And then the
glass below (nearer the pipe) is necked and worked down to shape
the weight.
Small pieces
showing the structure of a basket base.
Samples of Drew's weights,
not including his most elaborate designs.
Examples of Drew's work
in the less expensive works he does. One of his rediscoveries was
a way to make the basket weights represented by the small one in
the lower right corner, which is solid glass (not glued up)