Jan-Erik Ritzman and Sven-Åke Carlsson and their assistants, were working in the hot shop when I arrived. I don’t know what I expected, but my stomach was full of butterflies. All I knew was what I had googled online, and read in the glasricket magazine.
I shook hands with a glass master. The man sat at his bench and drew his own petroglyphs with a bit on a three gathered piece. He utilized his heat where I had convinced myself it wasn’t soft glass. While his assistant did his heats, he came over on a few occasions to talk with me. He answered my questions, he reminded me of my teachers back at Sheridan. He told me it wasn’t a good day to observe because he was just working on Tourist stuff for the gift shops, stuff they could afford, the chore. I can relate to that. Even a Gaffer of fifty years has to make the tourist stuff. Although I must say, I wish my body of work was as beautiful as his tourist stuff.
I chatted with Dan one of the assistants for a bit, he was a glass master at Kosta and left his paying glass blowing job for a residency opportunity at Transjo Hytta. There he lives off his artwork and works everyday as an assistant and gets one day a week to work with one of the masters on his own body of work. What will a glass blower do for that kind of opportunity.
I loved being back in the hotshop just observing. Their movements, the smell, and the noise. Home. This has been an amazing trip.
