BEIJING, February 22, 2012 (City Weekend) — Blowing glass isn’t something we usually think about, but it’s a cool craft and always impresses us on trips to places with Old World roots like Venice. In 2006, the Schoolhouse at Mutianyu opened Schoolhouse Glass, hoping to bring glass art to China by letting people experience the process.
Since then, glass blowers and lamp workers from China and abroad have come to create exquisite pieces of art as unique as the space itself. Julie Upton-Wang, partner at the Schoolhouse, says that besides massive glass factories in Dalian, she doesn’t know of any other glass-making institution in China like Schoolhouse Glass.
“For non-experts, it can be intimidating and seem expensive to get the whole thing up and running,” Upton-Wang says, explaining why no one else has ventured into glass blowing.
Initially, to fit in with the Schoolhouse’s mission of sustainability and using all things local, Schoolhouse Glass hired local workers to build the space’s first furnace, but “it just wasn’t right,” Upton-Wang admits. The local-built furnace ended up melting the glass, which forced them to import the two glass furnaces and the glory hole from the U.S. and start over.
Luckily, the second furnace fired up, and now there are usually one or two artists and an assistant conducting twice-daily 40-minute demonstrations and turning out seasonal glass items—pumpkins for Halloween, baubles and candy canes for Christmas, eggs for Easter and Chinese zodiac figurines. Last year, a visiting Romanian glass artist even stopped by to re-purpose broken and discarded glass into gorgeous pieces of art.
Off-site, Schoolhouse Glass also produces their famous “singing” wine glasses and bowls, which are lead-free and emit a very high-frequency, melodic sound that Upton-Wang says is great for meditation.
The glass is only for sale on-site, and quality like this doesn’t come cheap, especially because it’s so rare in China. Expect to pay ¥500 for a glass pumpkin and up to ¥2,600 for a large glass plate. But there are cheaper finds, including glass animals like this octopus for ¥180, and jewelry from around ¥100. The demonstrations are free, and surprisingly safe considering the super-high temperatures the furnace has to achieve in order to melt the glass into something malleable enough to turn into something to arrange flowers in or decorate a curio cabinet with.
It's Mikala! 