On Becoming a Lampworker

Randy Kaltenbach

As an avid amateur glass artist and then a student at ACAD, I have always been very much in love with the traditional hot glass process. The immediacy of stabbing a large gather into a custom mould. The hypnotic hours of coldwork to produce a light-catching polished lip. I decided to construct a borosilicate glass lampworking shop in my garage for a reasonable investment and limited carbon footprint while avoiding the large-scale problems of a hot glass studio.I present my studio design process, budget plans, build photos, and thoughts about challenges I faced (including a car driving through the middle of my studio!) and what I accomplished.

Artist Bio: Randy Kaltenbach is a Calgary-based artist with an artistic practice centered on glassblowing but including elements of kiln-formed glass and other glass and sculptural media. His latest show was the 2017 “In Vitro Veritas MMXVII”, and is represented by Calgary’s Passion for Glass Gallery (ACAD). After 15 years as an avid part-time maker, he graduated from Calgary’s Alberta College of Art and Design. Previously, Kaltenbach enjoyed a career as an engineer and instructor at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.