Traveling to manufacturing plants to watch people work has always struck me as a dubious venture. Increasingly, factories of all kinds seem to be offering tours, probably on the assumption that a free show will win admirers and translate into sales. And since most tours conclude in the gift shop, they probably succeed, however boring it might have been to watch parts get assembled into gadgets. But glassblowing is different.
We had stepped from the stillness of the snow-dusted countryside into a spacious hall suffused with warmth and activity. The crucible, a furnace that melts the glass to roughly 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, exhaled a muted roar, mesmerizing us like a primeval bonfire. The air smelled of scorched metal, the molten glass blazed neon orange, and glassblowers rolled it onto their pipes with the purpose of breathing life not into ball bearings or microchips, but the most fragile of tabletop art.
Teams of T-shirted men, their faces damp with perspiration, tempered blobs of scalding lava into glossy, transparent vases and goblets. The gaffer, the most skillful of the group, was easy to spot: He was the one seated. His assistants carried glass back and forth to the glory hole, the furnace's opening. All of them worked with concentration and economy of movement, leaving little opportunity for conversation. Timing is essential. Once out of the furnace, molten glass cools within minutes.
I had visited a number of vintage glass factories in the Czech Republic, where some 50 industrial-size plants cover a territory about the size of Maine. An ancient art in the heart of old Europe. By contrast, New England's glass industry peaked in the 19th century, all but dying out by the Second World War. Massachusetts' famous Sandwich glass was active only from 1825 to 1888. Pairpoint Glass, in Sagamore, might be called an exception. Founded in 1837, it is still in operation.
