Tucson's glass art scene is a tight-knit one, and thriving. At the hub is the Sonoran Glass School, whose reputation, well, glows.

Hot shops. Warm shops. Fusing and slumping. Frits and torches. And a big, glowing cave for reheating that they call The Glory Hole.

Glass art is factory meets studio, heavy trade meets fine craft, and a world of words that sound part-Tolkien, part porn. When it is tentatively suggested to the men who run Tucson's Sonoran Glass School that they do not fit this reporter's typical image of an artist, there is chuckling.

"My hair isn't long enough?" quip executive director Michael Nicholas, whose other job is running a construction company. But he and Dave Klein, co-founder of the place along with artist Tom Philabaum, nod in agreement. Dave concurs that, were he to be stopped in the street, this burly guy would be likely to be taken for a manual worker of some sort, but not an artist. It's that heavy trade aspect of glass art, they say: the fact that lifting, turning and blowing glass is a job that requires strength.

When Tom Philabaum told Paul Stout he had the build for glass art, "he meant it's because I'm strong," says Paul, a taut, muscly guy who looks like he'd be better suited to a body building studio than an art one. Holding glass on the end of a long pole, as one does while blowing it, can mean the glass feels heavier than it is, he explains.

"It takes endurance and strength. The glass might weigh 20 pounds but it feels like it's a hundred," says Paul, then a dishwasher in a cafe and now a glass artist in his own right. "It's the wet towel effect. It's called lag." And with that he adds yet another word to the layperson's vocabulary.

With glass comes an "Aha" moment, the time when a person falls hook, line and sinker for the art form. Some will tell you it's the fluidity of the material. Others will tell you it's that glass is both strong and delicate at the same time. Yet others will marvel at the color you can bring into glass, and easily too (this is where frits come into it - tiny ground-up colored pieces of glass that clear glass can be rolled in to add hue).

For Michael Nicholas, now in his third year as executive director, the appeal of glass came from the instant gratification it gives. "When I saw the glass and how instant it was, I was like 'I need to do that'."

Co-founder Tom Philabaum calls glass "a cruel mistress". He and other glass artists "worship" the material, he says, for its flexibility and the color potential. "But it can burn you and cut you."

Tom began the school in 2000 with Dave and artist Michael Joplin (see our feature Glass Act in this issue) from Tom's downtown studio. William Justiniano recalls calling Tom up to ask him for work, and being launched headfirst into remodeling the building that is now the school's home, on 18th Street just south of downtown.

"I wouldn't have lived in south Tucson 11 years ago and now I live a block away. It's got a lot more gentrified," says William, who sports the rather enviable job title of lead hot shop instructor. When he's not teaching at the school, he's specializing in glass lighting for restaurants and homes in Tucson through his company Justiniano Glass.

Since opening, the school has had another studio added to it, grown to ten full-time employees, and built up to a budget of around $500,000. Glass classes and 'experiences' are held throughout the year, apart from the two months in the summer when the school closes. These range from making mosaic trivets to a six-and-a-half-hour stint making paperweights, tumblers and vases.

The Sonoran Glass School is always reaching out to schools and colleges to promote glass art among the young. If a school can't afford to pay for a program, says Michael Nicholas, the Sonoran Glass School will try seeking a grant to make it happen.

Money comes mainly from two fundraisers: a glass pumpkin festival in October, and Flame Off on February 8, which the school describes as like the flameworker's version of Iron Chef. Originally a handful of glass artists in a glass-blowing competition around a table at the school, Flame Off is now an event drawing hundreds and takes place at the Rialto Theatre. Around 20 artists vie with each other in two sessions. They are judged, and their results are auctioned off.

The people behind the school are proud, not only that it stands on its own with no affiliations to another body or college, but also of the reputation it's built up. Says William: "We've started to gain popularity to where now people I talk to in Seattle and San Francisco and the east coast, word has gotten around enough without them even being here that it's a studio to check out."

The studio's range of equipment gets positive comments, says Michael. People are coming here from abroad to take workshops, and next month the school will begin its first artist-in-residency program.

William's "Aha" moment came the first time he watched glass being blown. "It's the most magical type of art there is. Glass is one of the few mediums you can do anything with. You can paint on it, carve it, sculpt it, inflate it, mold it, you can put it on a lathe like you would wood or metal. No other art can have the versatility and be strong and fragile at the same time."

 

Flame Off 2013 takes place February 8 at the Rialto Theatre, and is the school's own wrapping-up of the Gem Show. Doors open at 6.30pm. Click here for details. For more info on the Gem and Mineral show, see our Et Cetera section.

Drink up, folks. Tonight’s happy hour could become tomorrow’s countertop. We look at the trippy things being done with recycled glass.

Thought you'd seen the last of those empty wine and liquor bottles? Well they could be coming back into your home, in the form of countertops.

Recycled glass counters are not only red hot, they're getting trippy. Turns out companies are salvaging everything from decommissioned traffic lights to Skyy vodka bottles - making for a set of vibrant colors (or more subtle tones, depending on your taste) and a variety of textures and patterns.

They're manufactured in slabs, and made from 100% recycled glass and Portland cement. The glass is then crushed or fused before its embedded in cement. Or long strips of float glass are fused together into one slab.

Natasha Winnik owner of Originate Natural Building Materials  is a long time purveyor of recycled glass countertops. Her studio/showroom specializes in environmentally sound building materials and finishes. The two most popular glass countertops at Originate are Vetrazzo and IceStone. The main difference between the two, says Winnik, is the size of the glass pieces.

Georgia-based Vetrazzo, considered by many as the original recycled glass surface manufacturer, features the largest pieces of glass. Its slabs contain 85% recycled glass and 15% Portland cement.

So why, apart from the obvious fun of it, would you opt for a recycled glass counter?

1. There's a story behind it.

These are countertops that tell a tale. Most of Vetrazzo's glass, for example, is reclaimed waste stream glass mixed with material from curbside recycling programs. It’s not unusual to find a tiny bar code or other print embedded in your countertop, or parts of windows, dinnerware, car windshields and more.

2. The colors pop.

Vetrazzo's 23 colors are named based on the origin of the glass. For instance, its 'Cobalt Skyy' is sourced from the signature blue glass of recycled Skyy Vodka bottles. And Alehouse Amber, well……you get the gist. A high gloss finish is standard - honed special ordered.

IceStone based in Brooklyn, New York, deals in smaller glass pieces than Vetrazzo, and offers 15 standard colors and six specialty colors.

 

3. They're one-of-a-kind.

Interstyle, based in Canada, uses new and post-industrial recycled glass for their Architectural Glass Surfaces. Its 'Ribbon' slabs are made from strips of float glass, coated with ceramic glazes and fused together in the kiln. The result? Undulating streams of vibrant colored glass, each piece handcrafted for a slab you won't find in any neighbor's house. Ribbon glass looks, well, like ribbon, distinctive from the aggregate appearance of Vetrazzo and IceStone countertops. Ribbon can be used for countertops and partitions and backlit for a dramatic effect.

For the subdued palette, Architectural Glass Surfaces also makes a line called 'Crush', from recycled granulated glass and ceramic stain, and with a monochromatic appearance. Available in 12 colors ranging from pale blues and greens to milky white and gray.

Slabs can be shipped for local fabrication or finished at the plant in the dimensions you need, ready for installation, says Interstyle.

4. They're low-maintenance.

They may cause havoc in your home in their original state (think bottles dropping on a concrete floor, or glasses smashed on the patio). But once they're manufactured into glass countertops, these babies are easy to take care of.

They're comparable in strength, durability, and care and maintenance, to granite. To clean, just use a damp cloth or mild liquid soap or detergent when necessary. Then seal or polish two or three times a year.

The 'Ribbon' and 'Crush' lines can withstand heat and cold, are unaffected by UV rays, non-absorbent, impervious to liquids, do not need to be sealed, and are easy to clean. They can be shaped, cut and polished for a variety of applications. If they're scratched they can be polished. But be mindful, says its manufacturer, that extreme and sudden changes in temperature may cause the glass to crack.

Ribbon in "Tropicana". Photo courtesy of Interstyle

5. A little goes a long way.

At $187 per square foot, Ribbon is best as a one-of-a-kind accent piece.

Vetrazzo and Icestone run $100-$150 per square foot for material and fabrication. They don't come cheap. And depending on the color and rarity of the glass, the price can go up, says Originate’s Cipriana Salazar. “Red glass is the hardest to come by, so the reds have the higher price point and yield limited edition series.”

But for that small island or powder room counter that requires only a few square feet for a dramatic effect, remnants can be had at Originate, 526 N 9th Ave  Tucson, AZ 85705, 520-792-4207

After 10 years away, artist Michael Joplin is back, with a new take on glass, a shared space with his wife, landscape architect Margaret Joplin, and a surprising new business that celebrates his late sister.

Michael and Margaret Joplin show off their new studio space like two bright young college grads. They're rejuvenated, excited, and with new direction. After 31 years of marriage, this is the first time they've shared space. And they're now sharing a medium too. For both of them, glass is a love and a living.

Margaret highlights the elaborate line of glass beads she's been developing, and describes the laborious process involved in making them (there's a slow cooker and a camp stove, clay and lots of molds).

Michael talks us through the even more labor-intensive technique behind his new glass art: blown platters that carry 1940s pin-up-style images achieved through painting, sandblasting and gradual removal of the paint.

Next month he'll share a show at the gallery of his old friend Tom Philabaum, with fellow glass artist Mark Abildgaard. It's a significant move for someone who took a 10-year sabbatical from the art world. "I got really sick of art. I lost any kind of reason behind the art," he says. So he played a lot of golf, got involved in two touring theater productions about his late sister Janis and, oh yes, launched a clothing line.

The move into fashion began as a discussion with the Joplins' eldest daughter Malyn, a graduate of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles. "Let's bring out a line of purses," they said. Before long they were studying bolts and fasteners, zippers and handles. Michael says he was realizing that it's all very well wanting to produce beautiful-looking purses, but it's a long, meticulous process. "You want them to be great-looking things and they look like turds on your shoulder," he laughs.

But both Michael and Margaret are more than happy with the hand-made purses and Janis-inspired boho chic clothing pieces launched last week. They include stretch cotton lace clothes, and tie-dye leather handbags with linings made of hand-dyed silk.

The collection is called Made for Pearl, after Janis Joplin's nickname (she'd use the name Pearl to book herself into hotels anonymously), and of course after her posthumous record Pearl, which reached number one on the Billboard charts and went quadruple platinum. Months earlier she lost her life to a drug overdose in 1970, aged just 27.

Michael Joplin will forever be linked to one of America's rock icons, thanks to a last name that's less than common. Asked whether the name holds him back, he says: "It used to. I would never sign my last name for a long time. I'm trying to make art."

Today, they are proudly putting that name behind the large central Tucson space they're leasing, one big enough for each to have an office,  studio space, and room for Margaret's various endeavours: her landscape architecture firm Design Collaborations; Pure Beauty, a retail space featuring everything from botanical prints to salvaged metal, to glass; and Bellus Lux, those glass creations created by an ancient method called lost wax.

Her work shows at the Tesuque Glassworks' gallery in New Mexico and the Tucson Museum of Art store. In February she's headed to Palm Springs Modernism Week to launch her glass beads.

In her landscape architecture work she uses salvaged metal. Her studio space is full of metal off-cuts, many of them the 'negative' panels left over after pieces of metal have been punched out of them.

Several years ago she wanted to try her hand at making huge glass beads (with 12" diameters and up) for a public art installation. Michael gently suggested she start by making small glass beads. The result? The couple's first art collaboration: a memorial for fallen public servants in Casa Grande.

Both are on the board of the Sonoran Glass School, and given her marriage to Michael, Margaret didn't come to the world of glass without prior knowledge. Blowing glass down at the school gave her a new respect for her husband's work, she says, and also made her realize she wasn't interested in blowing.

Today, her set-up with slow cooker, camping stove and aluminum foil debris - could be mistaken for something highly illegal.

The lost wax method is so-called because the original wax model for a shape is burned away or 'lost' in the process. Now that she's got her glass bead process down, Margaret can turn out 25 pieces in two days. Her current work features glass bead lighting, glass beads strung on heavy wire, and a rain chain, with glass beads and cups to collect rain.

Margaret has leased various other studio spaces before now, while Michael has worked from home. Their  new partnership comes at an interesting time; they're childless for the first time, their youngest daughter having just gone to college.

Their marriage, and their shared aesthetics, means they have a sort of shorthand when they're bouncing ideas off of each other. For Michael, up until now the lone telecommuter of the two, it's nice to be able to think his ideas through out loud, he says, and ask Margaret's advice. Still, says Michael: "Renting the studio was a real big commitment on my part."

Michael got into glass blowing after a friend in Prescott, where he was then living, told him about a glass class there. A month later, he was calling himself a glass blower. He and Margaret, who went to Prescott to attend college there, were friends for some time before getting together (she even went to his first wedding). They moved to Tucson in 1981 so she could attend the University of Arizona (she completed the 5-year degree in four years, despite the surprise of a pregnancy and the birth of Malyn.)

In some ways, the move into fashion shouldn't be a surprise. Prior to glass blowing, Michael was print making and silk screening. Art was part of his make-up for as long as he can remember. "I'd always been able to draw well [as a child]," he says. "I'm the product of that generation where where they said you can be anything you want to be. Everybody said 'You're good' so I kept drawing."

His new sketches on glass are a result of a long-time interest in pin-up art. He takes images from the Internet, manipulates them, and then goes through what's called multi-stage blasting, sandblasting the images, scraping away parts of it for detail and to lose color, and having to tape off sections as he works. "Nobody  is doing anything like I'm doing, mainly because it takes so freaking long," he laughs.

 

See Michael Joplin's work at Cast & Cut, a show at the Philabaum Glass Gallery & Studio. It runs February 2 to April 13. The award-winning touring theatre show, One Night With Janis, opens next month at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles.