When Paul Simonette retired in 2015 he had already spent 37 years fighting fires for the U.S. Forest Service and Department of Defense. One would think he’d had enough heat and fire to last a lifetime, but then his wife, Holly (herself an accomplished fiber artist), gave him a gift certificate for glassblowing lessons.
“There’s something primal about fire and melting glass,” Paul said. “It’s like the feeling you get staring at a campfire…it’s beautiful and mesmerizing.”
Paul ended up taking 10 three-hour classes, one-on-one with noted San Diego glass artist Andy Cohen. Cohen and her Studio 19 have been a fixture for more than 30 years in the city’s Spanish Village located in Balboa Park.
That introduction to the art of glassblowing struck a chord, and Paul was hooked. “I spent the next eight months assisting Kevin Baker (another notable San Diego glassblower) every Saturday,” he said.
In 2020, after several years of living the life of vagabond RVers, Paul and Holly settled on a 22-acre ranch site out Ranch Road 965, about mid-way between Fredericksburg city limits and Enchanted Rock State Natural Area. There, along with their home, the two artisans built separate studios and in 2022 established the Purple Shack Makers Gallery.
“It’s a place to showcase the craftsmanship of a host of amazing local artists,” Paul said. Included in the gallery’s curated collection are jewelry, pottery, photographs, paintings and drawing, weaving and fiber arts by Holly and, of course, examples of Paul’s skill as a glassblower.
Earlier this spring the Purple Shack Makers Gallery held a grand opening celebration featuring live music, food and wine, and in-person demonstrations of turning glass pellets (called cullets) into graceful blown works of functional art. Joining Paul as guest-artist was his friend and fellow glass artist Kevin Baker. The two spent a weekend at the gallery demonstrating their skills with fire and molten glass.
Paul’s studio, appropriately called a “hot shop,” features a glass furnace, a reheating furnace and an annealing kiln, as well as a large wooden work bench handmade by the late master glass craftsman Ed Broadfield.
The glass furnace reaches temperatures up to 2,000°F and is where the cullets are melted into liquid glass and kept until the glassblower dips his blowing pipe inside to “gather” a blob of glass for shaping.
The reheating furnace, reaching temperatures as high as 1,600°F, is also known as the “glory hole.” This is where the artisan reheats a piece between steps of working the glass. Glass is shaped using a variety of techniques, including pinching with what appears to be giant steel tweezers, turning in the bench, and blowing. Sometimes the gather of glass is decorated by rolling it in bits of colored glass called “frit.”
“Every piece needs to be worked upside down and inside out,” Paul said. A piece is removed from the blowing pipe, then attached to a second solid rod by a small amount of gathered glass called a “puntie.” The piece is now placed back in the reheating furnace to fire polish the edges.
Once removed from the pipe by tapping at an incised line made with a regular table knife, the piece is placed in the annealer so it can gradually cool without cracking. Annealing, also called “boxing,” takes place overnight, at a minimum.
The Gallery currently displays Paul’s largest work: a 15-inch tall glass vase. When asked if this was his favorite piece, he shook his head no. “My favorite is the next one I throw up (a term glassblowers use for making a glass piece). I feel like a need about 200 tries before I’ve mastered a particular form.”
The Purple Shack – Makers’ Gallery is open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Paul, as resident glassblower, is on-hand those days from 11 a.m. until closing to demonstrate this ancient skill. For more information or to schedule an appointment to visit outside of regular hours, visit https://www.enchantedfredericksburgranch.com.
By Carol Seminara · From the Spring 2023 (archive attribution) issue.