Heart Of Glass

Liz Light Visits Murano, A Small Island In TheVenetian Lagoon

The ambience is industrial and the smell is of burning. The roaring furnaces are full of molten glass. Mario, the master, dips his blowpipe into 1100 degrees of white heat, turns it like a teaspoon in golden syrup and extracts it with a blob of glass on the end. The blob is rolled on a slab of steel and then he does a big blow, and the blob turns into a glass bubble.

Mario and his assistant work together wordlessly, as if dancing, knowing exactly what each will do next as they co-ordinate the furnace, the long blowpipes and other tools required to create glass jugs.

The process continues with more blowing, more glass and a bigger bubble. A jug is shaped with a sizzle on wet cloths, then tweaked and pulled with giant tweezers, in between visits to the furnace. In half an hour it’s finished and Mario mops his brow before starting another.