Offbeat: Glass Blower

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BRANSON, MO (KAIT)- Todd Nelson has spent most of his life working in ceramics, but there's always been something about glass. Nelson is now a master glassmith at Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO.

Nelson has been a craftsmen at Silver Dollar City for more than 20 years, spending most of that as a potter. Six years ago he made the move to glass and hasn't looked back.

"The glass is needy," said Nelson. "You need to be quick. You need to make decisions on the fly. Ceramics takes time, but with the glass I can sit down and be done with it and the next day I get to look at it and hold the finished product in hand."

Nelson demonstrates his craft everyday before a "live" audience at Silver Dollar City, several times a day. Each demonstration is about 30 to 45 minutes and the audience gets the opportunity to watch the entire process from start to finish. For most watching, it's the actual skill of blowing the glass that is the most fascinating.

"If you're blowing hard, you're doing it wrong," said Nelson. "Glass is too fragile to blow hard. We like to say if you're blosing any harder than blowing bubble gum, you need to go back and warm up your glass, because it's too cold."

Silver Dollar City has it's own furnaces heated to 2400 degrees, burning 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each furnace, or glory hole, has different types of glass inside. Nelson uses a blow tube to pick up the glass and it's a process of blowing, heating, shaping, reheating, blowing, shaping, and reheating until he manipulates the glass just the way he wants it.

"I'd like to call it a job, but it's not," said Nelson. "I get to play at what I love. Not many people can say they get to do what they went to school for and still love it everday. I love it"

For more information about Silver Dollar City visit www.silverdollarcity.com.

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