Treviño-Blanquet Glass Art

New Glass Wine Stoppers - Swirls, Curls, Squiggles and More!

2010-11-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

I love the natural movement of glass as it melts in the flame of my torch. The glass becomes molten and if I heat it just right and in the perfect area, the glass bends and swirls without any molds or tools. That's pretty cool and just goes to show that patience and gravity is your friend when working with glass. I see so many swirls, curls, squiggles, u-forms and question forms in my head that I just had to translate it into my glasswork.

There are a bunch of these new glass wine stoppers for sale in my Etsy store. I plan to see what sells best and then I'll remove them so I can begin selling them directly to retailers. Check them out and if you just want to comment on the colors/style that you like best that would be great too!
http://trevinoblanquetglass.etsy.com

Wardrobe Malfunction

2010-06-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been away from blogging and working in the studio for a little over two months now. I'll admit a month and a half has been on me. After finishing Jenny's workbench I went on to other things. But now that I'm ready to start again I realized I'm missing a vital piece of equipment. This is where the wardrobe malfunction comes in. No, this isn't exactly what happened to Janet Jackson, but now I can understand how it could have happened. You have something that should work a certain way or fit a certain way and that's the only way it should fit/work, but somehow this other possibility comes up and that's the one that happens.
I have a cordless drill. And like all cordless drills, it came with a charger. A charger where the battery can only fit one way. Like those really old tupperware toys that were some weird polygon shape and had the star, square, circle, trapezoid,etc holes where only the star, square, circle, trapezoid, etc. plastic pieces that came with the toy could fit. Each one should only fit into its corresponding shape. But there was always that one person that could fit all the shapes into a single hole. So back to my drill. Without naming names, my assistant of choice, cuz she's my favorite, was helping me redo the studio and she brought me my spare battery from the charger and because she's very thoughtful and wanted to be even more helpful, she took my other battery to the charger to start charging. I thought that there was only one way to put the battery in the charger, but apparently my assistant is one of those people that could fit all the shapes into the same hole. After a subtle burning smell, she realized there was something wrong, but couldn't pull out the battery from the charger. Needless to say, my charger is now toast - ed, and my drill batteries are dead (for now). So the last three weeks of my lack of studio work I blame on my creative, helpful assistant and very thoughtful assistant. You gotta love her :)

Now on Etsy: Fish Sculpture, Glass Perfume Bottles and More!

2010-05-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jessie fixing up our studio, I'm now back to torching like I should be! We have some new items up on Etsy, which include:

- Glass Octopus Perfume Bottle
- Decorative Art Glass Chili Pepper Ristra (Green and Red)
- Fish Sculpture
- Jalapeno Glass Perfume Bottles

Here's the link:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/trevinoblanquetglass

You can also check out small images on the right side of this page.

Have a wonderful week!

Couple More Exhaust Pics

2010-04-10T21:04:00.001-07:00

We're very proud of how the exhaust turned out. And it seems to be working well. At least all the heavy stuff is above Jenny's side in case our workmanship wasn't up to par :)

- Posted by Treviño-Blanquet Glass Art

Workstation With Exhaust

2010-04-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

Progress is coming along great at TBGA Studio 2.0. The exhaust for the first workstation is done. This took us a long time becuase the fan is about 60lbs. and we wanted to mount it on the wall to have more floorspace. We needed to drill holes into the studs that hold our house together. Talk about anxiety.
The O2 and propane hoses have also been re-routed and re-connected. We now have one working torch station.

- Posted by Treviño-Blanquet Glass Art

First Workbench For TBGA 2.0 Completed

2010-03-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

The first workbench was finally completed. We were happy that we did not have to compromise on the design. The original idea actually worked. The workbench is foldable and will fold against the wall if we want to get it out of the way when we need space. The table is wood covered with hardibacker and the table legs are galvanized 1.5" pipes. The wall and floor are also covered with hardibacker.

The next step is to finish re-routing hoses, exhaust and cabling for misc. equipment. Finish covering the floor with hardibacker.
We will be up and running again by Easter :)

If the guys at OSH ever come across this, thank you. You're always so helpful with every project we've had.

- Posted by Treviño-Blanquet Glass Art

TBGA 2.0 Lampworking studio -Step 1

2010-02-23T21:42:00.001-08:00

Well, I haven't been working on the studio as much as I wanted to, but this week I'm hitting it full force. Starting with the new workstations in our lampworking studio. The image shows what our workbench looked like at the beginning (TBGA 1.0) on the left. The right shows what the workbench looks like today. Drills, hand tools, building materials and glass all living together in the same work area. Who knew a few glassblowing classes would lead to this crazyness. The good news is that I get to buy new tools that I "need" to continue and I get to spend time at the hardware store, my version of a toys'r'us
:)

- Posted by Treviño-Blanquet Glass Art

Glass Studio Chaos

2010-02-10T14:18:00.001-08:00

So the mailbox annealer we built with the hand-wound element we made using a battery-powered drill, a metal rod and kanthal wire, oh and A LOT of muscle, finally croaked. Well technically the element is what croaked and although we could install a new element, since we already had a new Paragon waiting to be installed, we decided to go that route instead of fixing the mailbox. Of course installing the Paragon required redesigning the studio space and moving a lot of stuff around. Currently the studio is in chaos. New workstations are being built, a new exhaust system is being designed and plumbing is being re-routed. To top it off the contractor we hired (me) is a slacker. Not really, but since I'm a perfectionist it takes me three or four times longer than it should to complete something.
Keep posted. Trevino-Blanquet Glass Studio 1.0 has run its course(a great first studio btw), but TBGA 2.0 is going to be released soon :)

Art Glass Snowmen Ornaments

2009-11-08T21:28:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that the holidays are almost upon us again! Jessie and I are happily creating the glassblown ornaments in time for the holiday season.

Back by popular demand are the lampworked, snowmen ornaments as seen in Glass Line Magazine, Volume 22 #4. Snowman ornaments come in combinations of green/white, red/white and blue/white and have a santa hat with a built-in loop for ornament hangers. They are great as a both a sculptural piece and decoration for your tree.

You can see our current glass ornament listings on our Etsy store as well as view a video QuickTime or Waveform showing how beautiful these pieces look on a Christmas tree. Thanks again to my brother-in-law Frank for his talent!

Have a wonderful week everyone.

Glass Art Chili Ristras

2009-09-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

We have a brand new product.... glass blown chili ristras!

I've always wanted to make a glass version of these peppers ever since my family took a trip to New Mexico and I saw all these beautiful chilis drying on peoples' porches and windows. I love how the peppers become all wrinkled and crinkly through the process. Ever since then, that image has stayed in my head and, after finding the right glass colors, the peppers took life in our lampworking studio. Like the vegetable version, our chilis are distinctly dented using a table knife from our own kitchen. We make green and red ristras containing 3, 6, 9 or 12 peppers.

When the chilis are ready, we sit outside and string all the peppers up on metal chains and rings and top each one with a raffia bow for that authentic flavor. This week Jessie and I had a blast making these. Here's a picture of what our messy table looked like in the process:

We hope you enjoy these. Our first ones are being sold on Etsy now. Have a wonderful week!

Our Published Work!

2009-01-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and New Year! Jessie and I have definitely been off to a happy start. One of the goals I set for our business was to be published in two flameworking magazines that we regularly read and love called The Flow and Glass Line. Both magazines publish articles and tutorials about the flameworking industry helping so many artists, including myself, evolve in their careers. One of the great things about The Flow is that they publish an issue called "Women in Glass" each year to highlight all the female flameworkers in the industry. I was honored that our Dia de los Muertos piece (left) was amongst those chosen for the "4th Annual Women in Glass Issue" and published this past Winter 2008. :-)

Additionally, I received a great surprise when I was contacted by the editor of Glass Line magazine asking if I would write an ornament tutorial for their winter issue. The Glass Line magazine has been around since 1987 and I had been collecting and learning from their magazine for the past couple of years. I was excited to submit a tutorial called "Making a Snowman Ornament", which describes the process for making one of our most popular holiday items (left). This article was recently published in their Dec./Jan. '08 issue.

It feels great to reach your goals. I wish everyone the same success!

Glass Pumpkins!

2008-10-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

This year Jessie and I are participating in the Great Glass Pumpkin Patch in Palo Alto. We've made a bunch of solid pumpkins that we are very proud of. :-) It sure wasn't easy though! We had to teach ourselves how to make these pumpkins on a torch. We also kept having one equipment issue after another, which kept us from working for about a week! We ran out of oxygen several times and we were both working through various burns and other ailments. On top of that, several pumpkins fell while we were transferring them to our kiln so we had to start all over from scratch. Each pumpkin generally takes about an hour or more to make so that wasn't fun. As we finished the last pumpkin, we said a silent prayer hoping that nothing else happened before it was placed safely in our oven. I think I forgot to breathe during that time. :-) Ultimately, we finished the pumpkins and met our deadline! It's like it was meant to be. :-) Every mistake, problem, issue, etc. is so worth it because we learn a lot and become that much stronger for having gone through it. Now, we look forward to adding pumpkins to our regular product line because they are so much fun to make. Most of the kinks have been worked out so it shouldn't be as dramatic as this first round. Ha ha!

About our pumpkins:
We use the flamework technique to create our pumpkins so most of them are solid instead of blown. If you've ever seen a glassblowing demonstration, you know that the artist gathers hot molten glass from a furnace and proceeds to shape the glass from there. Jessie and I work on a torch so our process differs in that we start with a solid glass rod and then melt it down in the flame to make it into a large, solid ball. We then decorate and shape it from there. The whole process takes about an hour or more depending on the size and embellishments.

So now the details of where you can see and purchase the glass pumpkins:
Dates: Saturday, 10/04 and Sunday 10/05
Time: 10AM to 5PM
Place: Palo Alto Art Center, 1313 Newell Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94303
Website: http://www.greatglasspumpkinpatch.com

Thanks for reading and hope to see you there!

Jessie's Amazing Work!

2008-06-18T18:22:00.000-07:00

My partner Jessie is amazing. She's one of those scary talented people where you just look at the person and wonder how the hell they do what they do. Anyway, since Jessie works full time, she gets on the torch a few hours a week if that. She jumped on the torch the other day and created this gorgeous female sculpture and then turned it into a candle stick holder. I just love it. The body is solid sculpted out of her own cane. This is hard to do! Glass cracks and you constantly have to understand exactly where to heat it to get it to form the way you want it to. Every couple of moves you have to reheat and pay special attention to twists and turns in the glass. She nailed it in only a few tries!

Her candlestick is definitely worth a look. Here's the page:
http://www.trevinoblanquet.com/candlesticks_detail/sculpture.htm

Have a great rest of the week!

Great Glass Gala Auction 2008!

2008-01-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

Jessie and I are thrilled to announce that one of our stoppers will be donated at the Bay Area Glass Institute's Great Glass Gala Auction this year! This event will take place on January 25th and 26th in San Jose. For more details, please go to:

http://bagi.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=138

To see the stopper we've donated for this event, please go to:
http://www.trevinoblanquet.com/stoppers_detail/red_white_flower.htm