Apprentice Glassware

Practice makes perfect imperfection on the path to mastery. A side benefit of educating a new generation of artisans? Seeing and feeling the vibrant authenticity of their initial creations. Each unique apprentice piece illustrates the meaning of “handmade” with a wabi-sabi aesthetic that brings the energy and passion to your table.

Simon Pearce glass blowers train for years, much of the time, working in tandem with another glass blower to perfect their craft. Along the way, however, each glassblower spends time alone, creating what we call “Apprentice Glass”. An apprentice glass (or bowl, or vase) is created from a singular gather of molten glass from the furnace, and is shaped in its entirety from this one gather. This allows the glassblower to develop their proficiencies in elements of glassblowing such as gathering, blowing, transferring from one pipe to another (with the aid of a stand), shaping and opening the glass. Working swiftly, each piece takes 8-9 min, and in a day, the glassblower will complete up to fifty glasses.

Another element of the apprentice glassware is its simplicity of design. Only general specifications are followed, and without a partner, the glassblower can not add design details such as a foot, rolled rim, or texture, to the glass. As you can see from the above photos, blowing a simple drinking vessel out of glass, is at once, a race against time and an exercise in precision. The end result is perfect imperfection. Each vessel has its own character, and yet they hang nicely together as a group. The Apprentice Collection has become one of our customers’ favorites, as they choose the shapes they like from a group on display.