By Cassady Rosenblum
According to Scott Meyer, it takes about two and a half puffs to make a pumpkin–a glass one, anyway. He sweats as he toggles somewhere between firebreather and showman– the show being West Virginia’s treasured art of glassblowing.
A hushed crowd is gathered to gawk and maybe buy in his garage next to JD’s Automotive on Route 32. Meyer opens the door to a furnace that reads 2100 degrees, revealing a molten pool of glass so bright it’s difficult to look at. “Glass is like a woman,” Meyer tells the crowd, dipping his long, hollow rod inside the inferno. “It’s better to ask than to demand.”
A glowing, gooey blob is now on his tip. Meyer rolls it in a cast iron pan full of what looks like coarse, purple sand. This step gives the soon-to-be-solid glass its color. Then it’s time to soften the blob again a smaller fritting furnace known, professionally, as “the glory hole.” “I swear I didn’t make this stuff up,” laughs Meyers, who learned the art of glass blowing 33 years ago at Wheaton Glass in Millvale, New Jersey.
New Jersey and West Virginia both have storied glass traditions thanks to their natural resources. Namely, both have major deposits of silica sand. In order to manufacture high-quality glass, sandstone containing at least 98% silica must be used.
In West Virginia’s case, this sandstone comes from the Oriskany Sandstone– a band of sedimentary rock that extends across West Virginia and Pennsylvania up into New York. Furthermore, long before the drilling of the Marcellus Shale, West Virginia had an abundance of natural gas that was used to fuel the glass furnaces. Since 1813, when Isaac Duval opened the first glass factory in the state at Wellsburg, more than 400 glass factories have operated in West Virginia. Today, it’s mostly artists like Meyers who keep the tradition alive.
It’s finally time to blow. Meyer pulls his rod out of the glory hole and puffs once like he’s playing a single note on a didgeridoo. The glass, which still appears orange from the heat, responds by expanding gamely. As it cools, it becomes hard enough to hold shape. Meyers squishes it to look squat like a pumpkin, and carves some ridges. After coaxing it to the size he wants through a few more puffs, Meyers pinches off the orb, and leaves it to sit while he fashions a stem, flowing through the process all over again.
Drizzling it on top of his purple pumpkin, the glass curls perfectly as if it were a real vine. This, says Meyer, is the beauty of glass. “I don’t really like to take that much credit,” he says. “The glass itself is in charge. I’m just lucky I know how to play with it.”
Meyer’s glass garage is open seven days a week from noon to 6 p.m. His work will also be available for purchase at the Artober Fest at Timberline Mountain from 1-9 p.m. on October 23.