John Almaguer
John Almaguer was 14 when he first decided he wanted to try glassblowing, but it wasn’t until seven years later that he got a chance to try it. When he took his first gather of glass in 2003, he felt like a little kid in a candy store and he has been blowing glass since. He loves this fire dancing, creating sculptures and blown forms through this substance that is so much like lava. The forming of glass is craziness, you take a puddle of lava and form it into a vase or sculpture without ever actually touching the glass with your hands. The glass needs to be slowly cooled in an oven to prevent it from cracking as it cools. Often times he will carve on the glass, after it comes out of the cooling oven, called an annealing oven. This process of working the glass after it is cold is called “coldworking”. Coldworking can involve a lot of different processes, such as cutting, carving, sanding, faceting and polishing. John does a lot of coldworking to his pieces. Sometimes, it includes changing optics and surface texture on a clear minimal form, sometimes he is carving through layers of different colored glass to expose the underneath on a sculpture, giving it texture and patterned lines.
Before arriving to Asheville where he makes his work, he was living in Murano, Italy where he apprenticed at the Zanetti Studio under Maestro Oscar Zanetti and Maestro Arnaldo Zanella. During his time there he was given open access to the private studio of Pino Signoretto. He learned many techniques for working the glass hot.
John uses these hot and cold techniques to make all types of things, from vases to chandeliers. He enjoys making custom, one-of-a-kind sculptures and custom lighting. He has been working frequently with designers to create custom glass lighting for homes and businesses.
Creating something that has never been seen before excites John.
“What a joy to dance this dance of creating works that God dreamt of making through me long before I even breathed. And now I breathe and art is formed.”
