JANESVILLE — Molten glass and the high-energy UW Band turned up the heat at the Rock County 4-H Fair Wednesday, on an already steamy weather day.
The band was the evening grandstand entertainment, sounds of the drum line and horn line echoing throughout the fairgrounds. Some fairgoers watched from grandstand seats while many more listened while enjoying funnel cakes, cream puffs and roasted corn, wandering through animals barns, playing carnival games and waiting in line for carnival rides.
Fair Board President Ryan George said Tuesday’s attendance was down from the first day of last year’s fair. However, Wednesday appeared stronger.
“I just walked through the midway and it was really good,” George said of Wednesday’s crowd. “We’re going to have a strong weekend. We’re going to have great weather.”
Hot Glass Academy
Across the grounds from where the band was performing, under a large tent near the stock pavilion, Devan Cole of Hot Glass Academy was offering a new kind of entertainment not found at the fair in past years: glassblowing demonstrations. Hot Glass Academy will be at the fair every day through Sunday, with Cole assisted by Terry Baker.
Hot Glass Academy, owned by Cole, is based in Americus, Georgia. Cole travels across the United States, giving workshops and demonstrations at county and state fairs, when he’s not traveling around the world as a glass artist.
He has plans to travel to to Istanbul, Turkey in March, and he helped open a glass arts studio in Kuwait.
What is glassblowing?
Glassblowing is shaping a mass of glass that has been softened by heat by blowing air into it through a tube. Glassblowers inflate molten glass to make objects. On Wednesday, Cole made a guacamole bowl.
The heat is generated by a furnace, which gets up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
At the start of the show Wednesday, a piece of glass was on a tube called a blowpipe, and put into the furnace. Soon, it was glowing a dark orange color.
“Note it’s orange in color right now because it’s very hot. I’m going to gather by twisting and turning inside the furnace. When I come out, I’m going to have a tiny little blob, a very technical term, on the blowpipe,” Cole told the audience during the show, adding that it is “very hot.”
When the orange on the blowpipe shone the brightest, it was met with “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience, which nearly filled the two sets of bleachers.
Cole said getting those “oohs” and “ahhs” feels “pretty amazing.”
“It’s just sharing our passion and really showing off the material. It’s a 2,000-year-old artform that a lot of technology has not changed one bit. We’re not just sharing our passion but we’re giving a little history of what this has been,” Cole said.
The show was interactive. Cole allowed audience members to feel the radiant heat of the bowl after it came out of the furnace as long as they didn’t touch it, and he took questions.
He also quizzed audience members.
“We’ve had a lot of good answers. We’ve had a lot of good questions. It’s good when everybody engages,” Cole said.
April, Anna and Zachary Brown watched the 4:30 p.m. show Wednesday. They said it was fascinating, and Anna hoped to bring her grandma on Thursday.
“I liked seeing all the different colors when it came out of the furnace,” Zachary said.
Anna said her favorite part was how the mass of molten glass “went in round and came out flat and it made a bowl. I don’t know how that happened.”
“It’s the perfect definition of trusting the process because it goes in and it looks like something it’s not going to be,” Anna added.
April said she always wanted to see a show like this.
“I knew it was going to be a multi-step process but you don’t realize how many different steps,” April said, adding, “It’s definitely a work of art.”
Cole has been glassblowing for 21 years. He started at the Rochester Institute of Technology and earned a bachelor’s of fine arts degree in glass.
“I was fascinated with glass from pretty much the moment I saw it. I did go down to West Palm Beach as a young child and see a gallery, a habitat gallery that was showing Dale Chihuly, as well as a number of other artists that were really influential in my decision,” Cole said.
There are similarities between glassblowing and pottery, Cole said.
“You’re dealing with quite a bit of heat (and) just making art through your hands and working in three dimensions. It’s definitely a skill you build over time,” he said.
Hot Glass Academy’s shows are 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. each day of the fair.
Outside the tent, there are cups, mugs, glass roses, glass candy canes and glass snowmen for sale.
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