Glassblowing is kind of always monitoring and trying to keep the glass in its happiest form.

At different times it's hotter and colder.

If you don't cool it right or don't heat it right it will stress and blow up.

I kind of always say it's like people, you don't know what kind of stress is underneath the skin.

♪♪ ♪♪ I'm Jesse Bogenrief.

I'm a glassblower.

I grew up in Northwest Iowa and I was part of a stained-glass company making glass ever since I was basically born.

My grandpa owned an antique shop.

My dad had some issues with working.

He was working at the Iowa packing plants and they went on strike.

So, he needed the money, took a stained-glass window out of a house, sold it to some of my grandpa's customers, one thing led to another and he became a professional glass artist.

♪♪ Jesse: Glassblowing is different than a lot of other professions.

It's such a feel and experience art form that a lot of people struggle to keep with it just because they get burnt out on the stress of it.

Jesse: This is where I start a bubble.

So, I blow -- ♪♪ Jesse: And then it will start right there, and there you are.

♪♪ Jesse: Just a little one.

♪♪ Jesse: That furnace runs 24/7, never shuts off.

You always want to keep it liquid.

Jesse: The color chunks are little pieces of glass, so they instantly melt and stick to the outer surface.

Once I get enough on there, then I have to melt them in.

Jesse: If you do want to try this, you obviously have to rent time.

There is a lot of places that do allow it.

In Iowa there are several colleges that have programs.

There's also places such as mine and several other local small studios that give classes.

Now, some of them are very controlled, some of them are very you have to make this paperweight first, then different things and then there's other ones like mine where I understand this might be your only ever opportunity in glass so I'm going to let you do basically anything you want.

Jesse: So, we use the second furnace for reheating purposes.

♪♪ Jesse: This furnace allows the color to melt in slowly and become one with the clear glass.

♪♪ Jesse: As it melts, I can get it softer, which allows me to work with it and add more color.

♪♪ Jesse: This time I'm pressing in bigger chunks to get a different effect.

You can create a lot of different effects by how you color and what kinds of color you use.

♪♪ Jesse: You can also make your own colors.

Most of the colors are metals and minerals.

I tell people one of the coolest things about my job is the fact that I have materials from stars that exploded that make colors.

And certain stars make certain colors.

Jesse: I'm going to use a pair of metal tweezers and they'll allow me to grab, pinch and swirl the color.

This creates action in the pattern and manipulates the surface.

I will smooth it out.

If I didn't, it would trap in air pockets because the glass is so thick.

♪♪ Jesse: I can feel it, you can see it getting stronger.

♪♪ Jesse: Pumpkins are extremely fast, but yet every time you're doing it you have so many volatile things that can happen.

It's kind of crazy that you sit there and you work with things that are A, hotter than lava, and then B, also hotter than spots on the Sun at times.

That's one of the other facts I tell people is the Sun sometimes can be 2 million degrees and other spots of it can be colder than my furnaces.

♪♪ Jesse: Science does some pretty amazing things when it comes to temperatures.

Jesse: We call this process marvering.

These tables used to be made out of marble.

So, I roll it and smooth those bumps out.

♪♪ Jesse: Again, they'll trap in air pockets, so I want to keep it as smooth as possible.

So, I'm going to go get one more heat and do that one more time.

And then I'm going to get another layer of clear over top of it.

♪♪ Jesse: So, right now that clear is not evenly coated.

So, I want to roll it back and forth in the wooden block to get it to shape nice and smooth and even.

♪♪ Jesse: Every now and then I dip the block in water so it doesn't melt it too much.

You can hear it steam sizzling.

♪♪ Jesse: And then now newspaper.

♪♪ Jesse: I want to get it with a little bit of a taper so it will fit into my mold for my ridges for the pumpkin.

♪♪ ♪♪ Jesse: I push it down to go into the grooves.

I rock it side to side.

And then I blow hard.

♪♪ Jesse: So, there I got a good base shape.

Jesse: The next thing I want to do is work on creating the weakness where I'm going to be able to remove this piece off the glass.

Glass is about controlling weakness.

So, whether you're doing something like stained glass windows, you're scratching it and developing a weak spot and then breaking it with vibrations.

Or, in my world, creating just a crease.

We call it a jackline because this tool is called a pair of jacks I'm going to use next.

♪♪ Jesse: They allow me to carve in a spot where the top will be.

♪♪ Jesse: Now I'm going to blow in the mold again.

♪♪ ♪♪ Jesse: And we're getting it.

Jesse: I got it.

Jesse: Thank you.

Jesse: The things I love about glass is how it effects in light and things like that, the fact that it is transparent and opaque, so you can get a different depth, visual looks and things like that.

I've always found that astonishing about glass.

♪♪ Jesse: Jen is starting to get some gathers on another pipe just to get the stem ready.

Glass is all about timing and you can't let anything get too cold.

So, I'm going to first use this, bring this top in a little farther.

She's going to get another layer and then start coloring the top.

Jesse: So, now I put little fractures in a spot that I already created weakness and that is enough to break it off.

Jesse: I have a high temperature little paddle plate here, a little bonk.

And then now I'll put the stem on.

Jen has been getting it hot.

♪♪ Jesse: Then I stretch it.

I want this thinned out.

♪♪ Jesse: There, it's starting to thin.

Then I hand it off.

I grab a metal rod and then I coil around and around and around.

Then I cut that off.

Then I straighten it, bring the coil down, touch it and then I want to fry that on with heat.

♪♪ Jesse: Anywhere where it touches the base glass, we just cook it some more and then we make sure the end is rounded.

♪♪ Jesse: And there it is.

Then this piece goes into what we call an annealing oven to cool overnight.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪