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LENNIE BENNETTAt the Arts Center in St. Petersburg, onlookers can watch a glass artist at work in the hot shop.
ST. PETERSBURG - Unlike most other arts and crafts, glassmaking is a process outsiders rarely can view. It's too dangerous.
In a glass-blowing studio, or hot shop, furnaces are fired up to at least 2,000 degrees to melt the silica, potash and lime, and artists and their assistants carry the molten liquid on long rods, manipulating it, cooling it down, heating it back up, sometimes using great, sweeping twirls to help gravity stretch it out.
In short, it's not the kind of place that can accommodate the casual observer.
But with the opening of "Hot Glass!" at the Arts Center in St. Petersburg, people will be able to see up close how glass is blown. A portable hot shop has been set up at the back of the building, at 719 Central Ave., where glass artist Jodi Bove will demonstrate glass blowing beginning Saturday.
The portable hot shop consists of two small furnaces - one for melting the glass and the other for softening it while it's being shaped, called a glory hole - and an annealing oven, used to cool glass slowly so it won't crack. Unlike most hot shops, this one is open-sided so viewers can see the process from start to finish.
The Arts Center also has an exhibition of studio glass curated by homegrown, nationally known glass artist Duncan McClellan.
PREVIEW: "Hot Glass!" opens Saturday at the Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, and continues through May 23. Demonstrations will be Monday and Thursday: 10 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m.; Friday: 10 a.m., 10:45 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 6 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday: 1 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:15 p.m. No demonstrations on Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, no demonstrations this Monday in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Cost: adults $3, children $1 (under 5 free); free for Arts Center members. For information, call (727) 822-7872.