BRENT SHEEHAN by Alyssa Worley | Photos by Michelle Camy
While placing flowers in a glass vase or admiring the color in a glass bowl, you may not realize how much time and creativity is put into any given piece. Brent Sheehan has made glassblowing his sole profession and soul passion for many years. Newly employed at famous Orient and Flume, Brent talked with us about how he found his life’s work behind the glass.
How did you begin glassblowing? I started in 2000 in Maui and that was the first shop I worked for. I later moved on and built my own shop. Then I moved to the Big Island in 2005. I had lived in Chico in the ’90s and I would go to Orient and Flume and watch them. They worked with torches on furnace glass with really amazing detail. I used to watch them a lot and it got me interested in that form of glassblowing. I helped other people assist in glass shops and when I moved to Maui I already had pretty good experience with glassblowing.
What is the interest with that particular medium? The nature of the material. Glass is really an amazing material. It’s liquid and solid. You can create things three-dimensional. You can make your own colors using metal oxides and silica. The colors are really like no other art form I’ve ever seen; they are really vibrant. Gold and copper makes a really deep, dark ruby red. You can reduce the oxygen in the environment and that brings the metallic luster to the surface.
What is the process of creating a piece? In general terms, glass is from sand or silica. There are things added to it to lower the melting temperature and make it a little bit easier to work with. It’s melted down in a furnace at 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit. It can actually get hotter than that. The glass is gathered out of the furnace on the end of a blowpipe or solid rod, kind of like honey. As that cools you can dip and gather again, building up layers. With each layer you have opportunity to add foreground and background to your piece. I usually have an idea of what I want to make. It can take several years to develop a design.
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