Blowing Glass in the Glory Hole — Master Craftsman Paul Brayton brings the Fine Art of Glassblowing to the Palos Verdes Art Center and Peninsula High School By Lynne LaFleur
This coming Saturday and Sunday, October 4th and 5th from 11am to 5 pm, the Palos Verdes Art Center (PVAC) will showcase over 30 artists during their Tour d’Art 2025, a two-day event held in the Palos Verdes Art Center Atrium where the community has an opportunity to meet the featured artists in person and also enjoy a self-guided tour of 6 private artist’s studios. Choose where you want to go and go at your own pace.
Torching the glass
Paul Brayton, instructor and master craftsman at Palos Verdes Art Center, will be demonstrating the fine art and mysteries of Glassblowing from 11 to 3pm both days, Saturday and Sunday. Please stop by and check it out!
Gathering glass out of the furnace
“Everything made out of glass, no matter in what form, eyeglasses, window shields, it all starts in a molten form.” Paul tells me as I watch from a distance in the PVAC studio where he makes his magic in glass. He demonstrates, pulling a ball of red-hot fire out on a long metal blowpipe (pontil in Italian) surrounded by intense heat from the furnace and the whirr of the fans that make working in the studio bearable. At over 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, molten glass is essentially a form of solidified fire. “If I pull too hard, I’ll snap it.”
Stripping the excess glass
The art of glassblowing is over 2,000 years old beginning in the 1st Century BC in the Middle East. The first recipes for glass were written in Sanskrit! When we think of glass and the use of the blowpipe, decorative design, what usually comes to mind is the sophistication of Venice and Florence in Renaissance Italy. No need to travel that far back in history, this ancient craft has a home right here on The Peninsula with Paul Brayton and his students.
Blocking the molten glass
Where there’s a spark, there’s fire — “It all started with a friend of mine in high school in Claremont. His father, Reese Williams, was an instructor at Pitzer College, also in Claremont. He was the first person who taught me how to blow glass. So in 1996, when I began at Pitzer, I approached him and said, “Hey, I really want to try this out.” And that became my independent study for one of my art classes; we created the curriculum for this program.
Peninsula High School —
“I graduated Claremont in 1998. My friend from Pitzer, Brendan Karg, grew up in Palos Verdes; he was then the ceramics teacher at Peninsula High. I was already in the glass world as a professional artist. I had also studied at Pilchuck Glass School, an internationally renowned center for glass art education and experimentation in Washington State. Brendan called me up and asked how I would feel about starting a glass program at Peninsula. We approached Principal Kelly Johnson who agreed, “I’ll build you a shed, but you’ll have to raise all the money.
“Immediately, we got to work fund-raising with the help of the Peninsula High Art Booster Club, which eventually led to us applying for a grant from the Long Foundation, a big supporter of the Arts. The grant was approved enabling us to purchase tools and the big equipment, the furnace and the Glory Hole set up. After that, the program just took off!
Pulling the lip
Palos Verdes Art Center —
“This was the really wonderful connection. Two women whose kids were my students at Peninsula were also on the board at PVAC. During the PVAC remodel, completed in 2012, a space was allocated for the Glass Studio and we launched our first class “Introduction to the Fine Art of Glassblowing.”
“I begin each class with a demonstration; I want my students to experience up close the process of gathering the molten glass from the furnace (which holds up to 500 lbs of molten glass at one time), working and shaping the glass at the tip of the blowpipe, what happens at the bench, keeping the glass pliable by continuously reheating it in the Glory Hole. It’s a fascinating process.”
Paul teaches two glassblowing classes at PVAC: Introduction to Glassblowing and his advanced level. “Over the past 15 years, we’ve brought this unique and ancient craft to the community.”
Tickets for Tour d’Art 2025 are available at www.taspv.com or at the PVAC/The Artists’ Studio Gallery and Gift Shop - $20 for adults, children under 18 are free. Tickets may be purchased in advance or at the door.
Lynne LaFleur attended Malaga Cove School, Lunada Bay Elementary, and Chadwick School, received her BFA from Pratt Art Institute in Brooklyn and has lived in New York City, Colorado and Northern California before returning to Palos Verdes in the late 1980s.
For more information, please contact Lynne at “lynnelf1@gmail.com”- The Centennial Celebration poster and all the individual illustrations (both as fine art giclée prints and as educational posters) are available for purchase from her website: www.lynnelafleur.com Facebook: LynneLaFleurArtist Instagram: “lynnelf1”