I'm Adam Holtzinger. I'm a glassblower. I blow glass in Brooklyn, New York, Long Island
City, mostly in the Brooklyn area. I went to Cleveland Institute of Art
in Ohio. I was a photography major in school and I was giving tours for the
school for extra cash on the side and they had to bring this tour group through
one day and went to the glass department and I didn't know what that meant and I
saw glass blowing for the first time.
That was it. I'd never seen anything like that before. I didn't know that it
existed. I didn't know people blew glass. I didn't took everything for granted. I
saw that and sat there for hours watching the tour group ended up leaving at
one point. I just let them do what they did.
Yeah I was just watching that for a while and then I took a class and I knew
immediately the second that I did it. The first the first time that I actually
gathered glass out of the furnace and that was it. I knew it.
This is my 11th year. Yeah working professionally for nine years.
There was training in school. I mean it was a traditional art school training
classically trained painting design everything. I just I fell in love with
it so much I just did as much research on it as I could possibly find and
started finding out that it's you know it's what we do is 5,000 years old so
it hasn't it's virtually unchanged.
It's a complete lifelong process. Never really sort of master it you know it's
just always always learning.
Not too often anymore do I just go in and play. There's always a there's always
a before process you know and there is a lot of pencil drawing and then lately
I've been using the computer a lot to figure out volumetric design and how
that works. So it's a lot of a lot of stuff beforehand and then go into the
shop and and try to hammer out as many different versions of said design as
possible. You make something on paper you go into the shop and you have this set
sort of idea of how you go about making it and yes sometimes it doesn't work at
all. The material has limitations. I'm finding less and less of them now I
think. The more you work with the material the less you find those
limitations but they're always there. Certain things you just can't do but
always trying to figure out how to do anything that you can.
I think you know right off the bat the more the more that you blow glass the
more you understand the limitations so you wouldn't even go into the shop and
attempt something like that. If you know it's completely not possible but if it's
right on the edge of being doable or not I kind of I really like to exist there
and try to try to push through that to see if it's even doable and nine
times out of ten it works. I can't think of my life without it I really can't it's
it's it's me I really feel like it's part of me that's it's what I think I was
put here to do. I can't think of anything that I'd rather do from the outside not
knowing anything about it it looks really really dangerous and you know it's the
glasses we work the glass anywhere from 2400 degrees down to 1200 degrees so
it's in that range and it's that's hot but you you you figure out pretty fast
that what you can and can't do it's kind of hard to really mess yourself up. It's
common sense don't touch things that are hot.
I'm working with my girlfriend right now we're designing lighting
together and really kind of temporary sort of design really simple shapes but
with ornamental aspects to it so I've been using this technique of canes which
is striped pattern and that's by taking molten glass with color in it and
pulling it out into long threads chopping those threads up and making a
bubble out of the threads which then becomes a striped pattern. Pretty
traditional Italian technique combining something that is was used for a
really ornate looking object and using that technique for something that's a
little bit more subdued and simple I've been working professionally for you
know eight eight nine years now ten years in the field working with
architects and designers and other glass makers try to execute the the designs
in the object that that person can't make necessarily or have never worked
with glass before that's what I do every day I haven't worked on my own work in
a long period of time but now since since doing all of that type of work gain
this enormous amount of skills and skill set so now I can I feel like I can
really start to explore my own ideas and thoughts with the material it is easier
to I feel that it's can be easier to make things for other people because it's
it's it's easier to to please them than it is to please myself when I make my
own things I'm really hard on myself I consider myself a perfectionist
regardless of what whether it's mine or or a client's work I really do my
absolute best to get everything absolutely perfect I teach you around
actually whether it be small classes or intensive things all over the United
States taught abroad I I love teaching I really really love teaching people how
to how to make glass even getting somebody it's never done it before the
first time that they see it in their face lights up it's it's a really good
feeling glass blowing to me I feel that it's a it's a dialogue that's the only
way that I can really think about it's it's a dialogue between the maker and
the material and how to how to continue that conversation with that dialogue is
is your lifelong my lifelong quest to keep to keep that dialogue open to keep
learning from the material and to have whatever is in my head or my hands come
out into reality I just yeah I just think of it as a conversation and I don't
think of it as a dance I mean it's a physical movement and a lot of people
would say it's a rhythmic thing that it is very dance like what it is but for me
in my own head it's a conversation
