Vetro Glassblowing Studio and Art Glass Gallery

By BINDU VARGHESE / Staff Writer

A 2,000-degree furnace might seem menacing to the uninitiated, but not to the artists at Vetro Glassblowing Studio & Art Glass Gallery in Grapevine. They approach their craft with steady gazes, ready smiles and sure fingers, and work the monster oven as easily as if handling a toaster.

We were introduced to their hot glass art during a pre-Christmas family trip to the studio, where my husband and I watched our 10-year-old son create his own ornament with help from studio artists.

Of course, Christmas is long past, but throughout the year, opportunities at Vetro abound for those seeking to create cherished memories.

Few things are as pleasurable as stepping from a cold, wintry night into a warm, toasty gallery filled with a kaleidoscope of colorful works. At Vetro, even everyday objects seemed ethereal as glass art, such as the "Reliquia de Uva I," a handblown decanter suspended from a slab of natural travertine, by Vetro owner David Gappa and artist Xavier Zamarripa. We could have spent hours lingering by the inviting alcoves filled with pieces created by Gappa and other Vetro artists, but my son couldn't wait to get started on his ornament.

We paid $25 for the ornament-making activity and were ushered into the adjoining studio, where my son got to pick the colors that would be applied to bulbous molten glass on the end of a long steel blowpipe. He picked purple and red glass beads, and with guidance, cautiously held the blowpipe and rolled the molten glass in the beads he had selected. One of the artists then stuck the mottled glass in the furnace for a few minutes for the beads to melt into streaks of color. The glass was then removed from the furnace and shaped into a sphere, with a hook fashioned on the crown.

The experience was an interesting intersection of science and art. My son learned that glass taken out of a furnace would shatter if it were left to cool at room temperature. With amusement I watched the mother-hen-like expression on my son's face as his precious ornament was carefully put in an annealer, a temperature-controlled holding pen where it would cool off gradually before pickup the next day.

We drove back to Vetro the next day to pick up the ornament and were thrilled to see the finished product, which found a place of pride on our tree that very evening.

Published in The Dallas Morning News: 02.06.09