Glass blowing - unique on La Palma!
Visiting Dominic and Wladek - the glass artists of Argual.
Dominic descends from an old-established glassblower's family which originally proceeds from the Boemian/Silesian Sudeten Mountains and who runs a crystal work in Neckarzimmern (Baden-Württemberg). In 1925, Dominic’s grandfather, Franz Kaspar, founded the glass factory in “Schreckendorf” (Silesia) and initiated the famous "Kasparkunst". In those glassworks built after the war, Dominic learnt from his uncle Peter Kaspar the creative craft of the glass blower. After profound studies in different German and Swedish glassworks, he decided to establish his own glass studio on La Palma and to devote himself to this ancient craft in stimulating surroundings of inspiration and creativity.
However, let’s simply visit Dominic in his small glass studio in Argual next to the Plaza Sotomayor . If one enters the workshop of the glassblower, one’s attention is drawn to the red fire in the "stove" and the artist standing in front of it. He is almost magically giving the desired form with the special glass blower stick to the glowing vitreous body. Slowly one’s eyes starts to get used to the relatively darkly working space and, then on the shelves and tables in the studio one discovers an immense treasure of different glasses of forms and colours. The artistic objects, especially, which consist of shining and colourful glass that seems to flow across small volcano stones attract special attention.
These amusing creations of glass find her origin in a mixture of quartz sand and the so-called fluxes like soda, lime and pot cinder which are added to the lowering of the melting point for pure quartz by approx. 2000 C on 800 C to 1200 C. With the lower part of the glass blower stick, an about 160 centimetre long iron pipe with mouth piece and wooden handle, a certain glass amount from the melt is taken up and blown under movement and swinging to a small ball. Dominic works without a strict mechanical scheme, i.e. he does not "blow" in a form as it is the case with the conventional approach of the glass manufacturing. In his studio the glass does not have to fit a special form. It is formed by rhythmical movements of rotations and turns with the glass blower whistle as well as by being blown up. It then becomes a unique composition of which there is only one of a kind. The glass artist and musician gives - like the conductor in the orchestra - the entry to an amusing play of forms and play of colours of fluent glass. It is Dominic’s musicality with the instantaneous composition and cristalisation of fluent colours and forms which enthral the beholder. Rhythmical structures and coloured lighting effects start to become independent in order to become then a weightless own way of life of the figure, forms and colour effects. A worldwide unique creation is the lava rock melted in Dominic’s crystal glass objects of the volcano island of La Palma. Every piece is unique: blown, handcrafted and signed.
La Palma is the most western island of the Canarian archipelago. Far off the mass tourism, La Palma has always preserved a distinctive respect between nature and art. In the middle of a banana plantation, directly next to the Plaza de Sotomayor of Argual and Los Llanos - one of the oldest places of the colonial age of La Palma - you find the glass studio ARTEFUEGO, where the glass artists Dominic and Wladek produce their unique glass objects in traditional manual labour.
Have a look at the gallery:
OPEN: daily from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Thursdays closed
On Sunday mornings public presentation during the market (rastro)
