Glass adventure continuous

2023 - October

Hello everyone,

It’s been a long time since you’ve heard from me, so I thought it’s high time for an update! The last time I wrote to you, I had just moved from the island of Bornholm to Ebeltoft, Denmark. I worked at the Glass Museum in Ebeltoft, where I learned a lot from Chris Lowry, the glassblower in the studio. I started working at the museum in July 2022 and stopped in August 2023.

During school holidays, the studio gets busy. We organize various activities for children like sandcasting, sandblasting, and glass fusing. The children love it, and I enjoy helping everyone out too. It was a bit of an adjustment at first because the children generally don’t speak English, but luckily, the parents (almost) always speak English very well. On days when we don’t organize activities, we make products for the shop. During weekdays, I assist Chris in blowing vases or drinking glasses. On weekends, I work alone and make smaller, usually solid items for the shop. While working, we explain to visitors what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, which was also a bit of an adjustment. Normally, I’m not a fan of being the center of attention, but after a while, you learn what people like to hear, which makes it more enjoyable for me to talk about.

Sometimes, we had special projects. For example, there’s an exhibition in the museum by an artist duo who have no knowledge of glass. Therefore, they visited the studio to explain their ideas. In collaboration, we made objects that are exhibited in the exhibition. In the photo next to this, you can see an example. They are solid glass cylinders with minerals from the seabed incorporated into them (see picture below).

In my free time, I played badminton and did yoga. The yoga was with other glassblowers from the village, taught by someone who used to be a glassblower themselves. The glassblowing community in Ebeltoft is very cozy, and everyone helps each other when needed. It was very nice to see that the different studios don’t see each other as competitors.

In the Ebeltoft area I met my current boyfriend, Samuel. We met at Nature Church, which is a church without doors or ceilings.

Together with Samuel, I moved to Taastrup, a side city of Copenhagen. Since September I’ve started working as a freelance glassblower for Arhoj. It’s a glass and ceramics shop with two locations in Copenhagen. The shop is set up so that people can see how we make the products. For now, I find this quite nice as I can focus on mastering the new products. We make a lot of “blobs”. These are solid forms with various colors and patterns. Later, eyes are added, which brings them to life and gives the blobs their own character.

Since last week, I’ve started Danish language classes. It’s 2 evenings, a total of 6 hours per week. It’s intensive and Danish isn’t an easy language! But I enjoy doing it, and I’m lucky to have my Danish boyfriend who can help me. I think it would be nice if I could roughly understand all conversations and make myself somewhat understandably.

In December, I’ll be back in the Netherlands for a month, and Samuel will come with me for two weeks. Looking forward to it! At home, I want to focus on lampworking, which is melting and shaping glass with a torch. You can make small things like beads.

Love,

Mirna