Ancient Craft Flourishes in North Country

By Michael Pon

The Villager Newspaper 2006

Trish Dalto and Alex Kalish of North Country Glass are in their tenth year of blowing glass in their studio in Washington. Trish and Alex were both attracted to the age-old craft while attending Franklin Pierce College in Rindge.

  “A friend suggested going to the glass blowing studio,” Alex recalls of his first encounter with the trade at the college. “They asked if I wanted to do some stuff, and it was love at first sight from there.”

  At that time Trish, who comes from New Jersey, was not working in the studio, but after Alex took some time off from college in his hometown, Manhattan, he returned to find her there, working the same medium he had fallen for. Although they have developed different styles, they are equally skilled.

  Before setting up their studio in Washington in 1995, Trish and Alex worked for six years with Chris Baker-Salmon, a glass-craftsman in Antrim. Juried members of the League of New Hampshire Craftsman, they are celebrating their decade in business, they will be having an open house and demonstrations during Columbus Day weekend and the weekend afterward.

  “I like to make what makes me feel good. I like things that make me feel calm – more fluid, gentle colors,” Trish explained. “Alex’s work is much bolder with contrasting colors. But the same basic process is followed by everyone.”

  Their appreciation for each other’s work is obvious, as when Trish was fashioning her first piece of the season during the Hillsborough Area Artisans’ Studio Tour on Sept. 16. Alex ambled up to the screened-in access to the studio and was heard commenting on what a beautiful vase she was making.

  “My designs are sort of out there,” Alex observed. “We have geared our work for many years to utilitarian pieces, such as wine glasses, stemware, paper weights, lamps . . .”

  Their production months are from September to May, when the weather is cool enough for them to work. Even in mid-September the temperature was 100 degrees on one side of the studio and 112 degrees on the other.

  “Human beings have been making glass for 5,000 years, which is amazing when you think of the pyrotechniques and the sustained temperatures involved with creating and maintaining glass,” Alex pointed out. “It was originally valued as a semiprecious stone for jewelry, beads and such. It wasn’t until about 2,500 years ago that people started blowing glass.”

  Alex went on to explain that glass is probably the only craft which was developed in only one part of the world, where the exact combinations of elements were available, and then spread out from there.

  “We have a pretty good idea it started in the Tigres and Euphrates river valley, which is located in modern-day Iraq. It was dangerous work and seemingly magical,” he said of the ancient working conditions. “In Venice the glass blowers were all put on the island of Morano because they kept burning their studios down.” 

  In the North Country Glass studio in Washington there are three ovens, a furnace, a reheating oven and an annealing oven, all fueled by propane. And it is a safe place, unlike its ancient counterparts.

  Alex and several friends built the studio from recycled posts and beams, set on a cement slab. Behind the ovens is a wall of cinderblock. Safety systems are built into the equipment so if the electricity shuts off the propane stops. Alex said there are also redundancies to back up the safety systems.

  “The equipment has been a whole process in itself, especially the furnace,” said Trish.

  In the furnace is a crucible, or what appears to be a ceramic pot, in which glass is made. Alex studied building furnaces in college. He recalled watching videos of Italian master glass craftsmen. One was of making a furnace. Before making the furnace they now use he watched that video over and over again. At first he built an oven which heated from the top, called an invested pot furnace. But it did not evenly heat the crucible, which would occasionally crack, making for a big mess and clean-up project. So he rebuilt the system to heat it from below.

  “We buy a pelletized material with silica and constituent chemicals which go into making glass,” said Alex. “To recycle it takes 2,000 degrees. But to actually make glass, to have the environment in which the chemical reactions occur to make glass you need 2,400 degrees.”

  They have melted down used old glass in the past, but it did not have the quality glass made from scratch has.

  “You have to heat up the furnace gradually so as not to crack the crucible,” Trish said. “And then you can make a load of glass, which is called charging the furnace. The charge has to be put in in increments and heated slowly. It takes a day.”

  “It takes about half an hour for a vase,” Alex said, reminding observers on the Artisans’ Tour that this time-estimate does not include all the preparation.

  They use an approximately five-foot long pipe to pick a ball of molten glass out of the crucible, which they work. They use a reheating oven, also heated to 2,000 degrees, to keep the glass from hardening as it is worked. Before beginning, punties, or rods, are set in a smaller warming oven where bits of colored glass are kept heated. All their shaping tools must be made accessible, clean and ready to use before they begin.

  “It takes a long time to learn to do it right. One thing to learn about glass is you can’t rush it,” said Trish, melting layer after layer of already made glass onto the pipe from the crucible in the furnace.

  “Once a piece of glass has color in it I can’t reuse it,” Alex said. “If I put it back in the furnace it would pollute the entire pot of glass.”

  “You have to keep it smooth and roll it back and for the to keep on center, which is crucial to getting a straight piece,” Trish said, constantly twirling the pipe.

  Shaping the glass with various utensils which are constantly rinsed in a bucket of water, Trish explained that the glass actually rides on the steam when rolled in the various shaping tools. She also used a folded up and soaking wet brown paper grocery bag to shape the glass with.

  “In school most people used newspaper which is really dirty, so Alex had the idea of using a grocery bag which is cleaner,” Trish commented.

  Handling both the glass on the pipe and a punty dipped in colored glass, Trish touched the color to the heated glass and spun the ball carefully, drawing a line of color around it.

  “The reds are a little more difficult to work with,” Alex said about drawing the colored glass off the punty. “They are stiffer.”

  Afterwards Trish heated her work in progress again and began the process of blowing through the pipe to create an airspace inside. This process she repeated several times. To elongate the glass they also sweep the pipe back and forth like a pendulum. Near the end of Trish’s progress, she twirled the pipe intermittently, allowing the glass lip of her piece to dip in an alternating pattern, creating a flower petal appearance.

  Trish then turned the fan off in the studio and shut the window to prevent any unwelcome breezes from coming in and chilling her piece too quickly.

  “If I were to finish a piece and set it on the table it would crack from thermal shock,” Alex said. “There are points in the production which are hit or miss. When I take it off the pipe is the point when the piece is in the most jeopardy of breaking.”

  But neither Trish nor Alex broke a piece. When finished, they set their work in the annealing oven, which is heated at 900 degrees and cools slowly overnight to room temperature.

  To see more photos of the craftsman at work, go to the photo galleries at cvvillager.com. To have a look at their online galleries, go to northcountryglass.com. Trish Dalto and Alex Kalish may be contacted at 495-1032. Their studio is on Bailey Road, off Rt. 31 in Washington, the second house on the left. They ask that visitors park on the road during their open house schedule, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.