Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/604902
LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 12.15 31 On a rainy October morning, the most polite teen mob on the planet — the National Future Farmers of America Convention — takes over Flame Run Gallery in downtown Louisville, a space of stark white tables propping up delicate glass pieces so vivid they're just shy of neon. Seven girls from Ohio and their chaperone descend a staircase into the hot shop to blow glass ornaments. The 94-degree, high-ceilinged room stresses industrial might. So gray and brutal. Tree- trunk-size pipes overhead. Metal this and that. In the heart, orange-hot furnaces glow, one ficking fery tongues onto poles. A burly man with a blue headband catching sweat at the brow is holding what appears to be a rubber hose with a mouthpiece. The girls will use this to transform malleable scorching glass into holiday treasure. First things frst: The man dips a long pole into a pool of glass, a 2,100-degree liquid of molasses consistency. He twirls the pole, creating a fery orange bulb, and heads to a table where metal trays of shattered, rainbow- hued glass await. He rolls the bulb into a tray of purple specks, which latch like sprinkles onto ice cream. The girls watch as he plunges the bulb back into a reheating chamber nicknamed "the glory hole." More glass sprinkles. Back and forth. It's time to blow. A girl wipes dark curls from her face. "Blow gently," the man instructs. Slowly, an orb of purple and white infates. "Blow harder." Dozens of FFA-ers watch from an observation window. The girl is a bit self-conscious. Brook White, Flame Run's owner, dips another pole into the furnace of molten hot glass and yanks it out. White, who wears a Superman shirt, appears to tear a 2,100-degree drip off the pole with his bare hand. This liquid glass will create the tiny loop needed to hang the ornament. Then it's off to a "cooling" oven set at 890 degrees. "If we let ornaments sit out they would crack," White explains. "It would go through thermal shock and cool too quickly." The ornament remains in the oven overnight. (Flame Run does ship if visitors are unable to pick up their pieces.) For $40, you can blow your own ornament all year. But demand always rises during the holidays. Appointments are encouraged. Exhaling is required. — AM gocards.com