WATCH: The art of Murano glass blowing
MURANO, Italy — Murano glass blowing is an art, an exquisite craft mastered over centuries by the glass blowers of Murano Island in Venice, Italy.
A mesmerizing process which shows the transformation of a glass mass into beautiful, colorful and elegant pieces of fashion accessories, vases and bottles, figurines, home accents and art décor by a master glass blower with precise movements in a furnace.
The basic principle is to heat up a glass mass until it is malleable, mounted on a metal rod which the glass blower has to keep steadily turning to create the shapes and splashes of color that it is envisioned to be.
The artisans of Murano has kept this generations-old Italian tradition alive, and they are sharing it with the rest of the world not only by making these pieces of unique glassworks available but also by showing tourists how they are made.
A number of small factories on Murano island, mostly family owned businesses, offer glass blowing demonstrations and workshops. They are run by generations of Italian families who took decades to master the craft. — Photo, video by Deni Rose M. Afinidad-Bernardo
