COVER STORY
Here comes the sun
Artist takes glass blowing to new heights
By Rita Frankenberry
Inside
Business - Hampton Roads
Monday March 15, 2004
John Quillen fields calls often about the Asiago Roast Beef and
the Smokehouse Turkey Panini.
“What’s the lunch special today?” they ask.
Quillen usually shakes his head and politely tells the callers they’ve
got the wrong number. It’s Pantera Glass, with a “t,” not the nearby
Panera Bread restaurant.
People sometimes are confused, but Quillen, a glass blower and Pantera’s
owner, undoubtedly builds dazzling light fixtures – not sandwiches
– and his passion is as crystal clear as the glass he shapes into
illuminated works of art.
“I don’t do this for the money,” he said. “The overhead to make
glass is so high, it really takes the money right out of it. But
there’s nothing like working with glass. There’s nothing I’d rather
do – I’d be miserable. I would do anything to keep my glass business
alive.”
He has had to.
During the past few years, while the economy has struggled to pull
itself out of a slump, keeping the studio operating hasn’t been
easy.
“I’d say on a scale of one to 10, it’s been a 10,” Quillen said.
“Ask my landlord how difficult it’s been because there are months
that the rent’s been late.”
According to wage information provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics, the top 10 percent of glass blowers earn $19.87 per
hour in the United States. The average wage is $13.04 an hour. Although,
as the operator of his own studio, Quillen is not subjected to those
hourly rates, this still hasn’t been an easy road.
“It’s tough,” Quillen added. “I’m not a very good businessperson
and the fact that I’ve even been able to stay afloat is a mystery
to me. That just reaffirms to me that it’s what I’m supposed to
be doing.”
For glass blowers, practicing this Old World art is a labor of love.
The art form is physically demanding, requiring that the craftsman
stand for long periods, often in front of a furnace blazing heat
of 2,150 to 2,400 degrees. He also has to make fast, simple, repeated
movements of the fingers, hands and wrists. The craftsman must be
physically fit and able to work for long periods without getting
out of breath.
Not getting winded is critical because glass blowers have to blow
molten glass, using a pipe head, into a shape, relying on their
own breath or compressed air. Glass blowing also requires a great
deal of dexterity because the artist must move two or more limbs
together, while remaining in one place.
“I get physically taxed,” Quillen admitted.
Sometimes, Quillen said, if he’s working on a large sculptural chandelier,
he has to climb a ladder and have someone down on the floor grab
the molten glass with pliers and pull it so that it will be long
enough.
Quillen had to use a similar process while crafting the long yellow
and orange pieces of glass that compose his “chandelier del sol.”
The glass pieces used in this sunburst chandelier are at least 2
feet long, but could be up to 4 feet long, depending on the size
of the fixture. Shaping these pieces is no easy task. To elongate
the molten glass for this piece, Quillen has to keep swinging it
from side to side, like a broom. Once it’s long enough, he strikes
the neck of the glass rod, in order to separate it from the blowpipe.
Staying motivated while working on a larger piece, such as his sunburst
chandelier, is sometimes a challenge, since such a large-scale project
can take almost two months to complete and requires creating the
same pieces over and over. Construction could even take months longer,
depending on the size of the light fixture.
“It does become a challenge – believe me – doing the same pieces
over and over, but you have to stay motivated,” Quillen said. “I’ve
had people that I’ve had to let go because their heart wasn’t in
it. And that’s all it takes to work it, is heart.”
Despite the physical hardships of life as a glass blower, Quillen
said from the day he was introduced to the craft, he was hooked.
“People don’t know what goes into the process – the feel of that
heat baking on your hands,” Quillen said. “They can’t know. When
you get your hands on glass, what you feel and see and experience
is different than what you could possibly expect, not having done
it. It’s like the never-ending challenge because the whole realm
of knowledge of glass is just endless.”
“I know that I’m so very fortunate to be able to do this,” he added.
“It ties into spirituality. It’s a gift and I knew it from the first
day so for me to question that, it’s not really cool.”
Quillen’s introduction to the craft was a two-day workshop he attended
almost nine years ago. Previous to that, he worked as a mold maker
and cast architectural building stone, creating ornate arches and
Roman columns for houses and buildings.
“I knew instantly that that was what I was going to do,” Quillen
said. “I was able to walk in and blow glass that day.”
Which is fairly unusual, Quillen said. The two class instructors
quickly realized that he had a gift.
“They threatened to break my hands because within a week, I was
doing things like layering on color – which they weren’t able to
do within a couple of years. I was doing quite a bit of experimenting.”
Quillen immediately became obsessed with his new craft and could
most often be found in his instructors’ studio – where he was spending
$35 an hour – to work on his own projects.
“I’d go into their studio and spend every dime I had,” he said.
“It was like an addiction. But, I guess it’s better to blow on a
glass pipe than suck on one.”
Even though Quillen now has a staff of assistants to help him execute
his designs, he still tries to spend at least four hours a day blowing
glass.
“I work with the glass pretty much every day, whether it’s cooking
the glass or blowing the glass,” Quillen said. “I have to do that
every day.”
Even in the summer, when it’s blazing hot outside, Quillen still
can be found sweating and creating in front of his studio’s furnace,
his face and hands cast in an orange glow. And not too far away,
stretched out on an oversized cushion, is Lino, the dog. Lino –
named after world-renowned glass blower Lino Tagliapietra – is a
stray Quillen took in two years ago. The two have been inseparable
ever since.
“He’s named after the best glass blower in the world because he’s
the best dog in the world,” Quillen said.
When Quillen made his furnace – which he both designed and constructed
on his own – he had Lino’s name set over the furnace’s door.
The furnace isn’t the only thing Quillen taught himself to make.
“I build all my own stuff,” Quillen said.
This “stuff” includes the metal frames his sculptural chandeliers
rest in. This method of assembly is a Quillen original, and it helps
to set his “chandelier del sol” apart from other chandeliers designed
to look like the sun.
The yellow and orange glass pieces that radiate from the center
of the light fixture stand straight out in all directions, truly
replicating rays of sunlight. Quillen’s spherical chandelier is
unique in that its shape is true to form.
“In an instant, I knew how to make that frame and how to make it
that tight,” Quillen said. “To make the glass point firmly in all
directions, that was the challenge I haven’t seen done that way
anywhere else.”
The biggest of Quillen’s “del sol” chandeliers was created for a
private residence. A staggering 11-feet in diameter, the chandelier
weighs 1,500 pounds and used 1,200 yellow and orange rods. It hangs
in the home of Rod Rodriguez, president and co-founder of Virginia
Beach-based Bay Mechanical Inc.
Rodriguez is also director of the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia
and it is through his affiliation with Hampton Roads’ art community,
that he became aware of Quillen’s talent.
Rodriguez isn’t the only one who’s discovered Quillen’s lighted
pieces of art, which many compare to the work of renowned glass
artist Dale Chihuly.
In fact, Quillen’s illuminated masterpieces grace many Hampton Roads
restaurants, among them Norfolk’s No Frill Bar and Grill, Club Soda,
Bardo and the New Belmont.
And at least one local office boasts a John Quillen glass chandelier.
In the boardroom at Bay Mechanical hangs a chandelier that looks
like a cauldron of fire with orange and yellow flames.
“Each piece has yellow and orange in it,” Quillen explained. “It’s
just an idea that I came up with.”
Quillen said he tries not to analyze his artistic abilities, or
the way he comes up with his designs. He just accepts them as gifts.
There was a time, shortly after Quillen learned the art of glass
making, that he was not able to practice his craft as much as he
wanted. Unable to feed his passion during waking hours, he would
often fall asleep dreaming about new techniques and designs. The
next time he was able, he would practice the techniques he had dreamt
about. Amazingly, he was able to execute them.
“It was like I had gained experience just from dreaming about it,”
he said.
While Quillen makes glass vases and ornaments, he is now shifting
his energies to creating new chandeliers. A lot of his clients find
out about his work through his booth at the Stockley Gardens Arts
Festival in Ghent. He plans on branching out and showing his work
in other artistic communities. This fall he will take part in an
art show in New York’s Soho district, where he plans to unveil 10
new chandelier designs.
He hopes that by introducing his work in new venues, he will find
art enthusiasts who are just as passionate about his art as he is
in creating it.
“I need to take my work other places,” Quillen said. “I want the
client who is awestruck by what they see and doesn’t care where
it came from. I want the person who knows someone put their heart,
blood and soul into a piece. …I feel like this is just the beginning.”
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