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By Patsy Miller – Special to the Star-Telegram
The lucky bidders at GrapeFest’s Vintner’s Auction will come home with unique hand-blown goblets that symbolize the city of Grapevine’s bond with nearby wineries and grape growers. The goblets are featured on the GrapeFest posters and will be used during the toasts at the black-tie Texas Wine Tribute.
The 17 goblets – representing the 17 years of GrapeFest were created by glass blowers David Gappa of Fort Worth and Gary Hayes of Grapevine who in a few short years of artistic partnership have created their own unique bond.
“We started out doing our own designs,” said Hayes. “Now everything is collaborative. Our direction and visual concepts are different, but by combining them our level of artistry and technical expertise have taken quantum leaps.”
Hayes is an environmental manager who had worked in a variety of glass art mediums for 20 years, but not handblown glass. He owned a custom stained-glass design center and taught classes privately and to college art students.
Gappa took a glass blowing class as a “stress reliever” while completing his master of architecture degree at the University of Texas at Arlington. It became a passion. He studied art, architecture and glass in Europe for a year and in 1999 he fulfilled his dream of opening VETRO Glassblowing Studio, located in downtown Grapevine.
Hayes was introduced to Gappa during another Grapevine event, Main Street Days, in 1999. Hayes took a handblown paperweight class at VETRO and immediately thought it superior to other glass mediums such as leaded glass, etching, fusion, sandblasting that he had mastered.
“With handblown glass there is much more of an immediate reward. With other glass forms, it’s deferred gratification,” Hayes explained. “There are few mediums that you are so very close to your work, but you can’t touch it. The furnace is 2000 degrees.”
The goblets are examples of their artistic melding. Hayes said his style is organic – there is a floral influence. Gappa leans toward the [symmetrical].
“We were given the dimensions for the bowls of the goblets, but the color schemes and stems were left up to us,” said Gappa. “We started as always by sketching with chalk on the concrete floor, playing with forms. We came up with themes. One bowl looks like a grape. There is a pair that we call ‘the dancers’. Goblets are the most technically difficult to do of all glass pieces. They are very thin and delicate. It actually takes more skill to do goblets than a much larger vase. That just takes muscle,” Gappa added.
The two go through a lot of chalk as they work out a design on VETRO’s concrete floor. “We may go through 3 or 4 sketches until it clicks for both of us. That’s just the first stage of the process. It may take months or years to determine if the glass piece can technically be created and then actually produce it,” Gappa stated.
“During the glassblowing process, we seem to instinctively know what the other needs,” Hayes said. “We communicate by nods. Of course, the initial design has been carefully planned. Our approach is that a piece of glass art has to stand the test of time. We will never be an assembly-line studio. It really is a more classical approach,” he explained.
Gappa promotes an open door policy at VETRO, encouraging professionals, novices and the curious to visit and watch artists at work. All the equipment has been built by hand.
Following a summer hiatus, the furnaces will be fired up for the public on August 30 and then every Tuesday and Thursday night from 6 to 10pm. On Saturdays, the glassblowing studio is open from 10am – 5pm. In addition to custom designs, repairs and large installations, the studio and gallery is available to the public for parties, tours, demonstrations and classes.
“We encourage relationships with glassblowing artists from all over the country. We invite them here to share their ideas and techniques and Gary and I study at other studios and workshops,” said Gappa.
The two recently returned from an international convention of glassblowers in Seattle. Hayes spent two weeks in Corning NY learning new techniques.
“I have a low threshold of boredom, but with glassblowing you can spend a lifetime and never master the art form,” said Hayes.
For more information on VETRO glass pieces, classes and events, visit the Web site at www.VetroArtGlass.com or call 817-251-1668.
Published in “UP Close” section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 2003