Special Occasion

Special occasions are a great opportunity to give a custom gift. I was commissioned to make a Silver Anniversary vase to commemorate 25 years of marriage. The technique I employed is Incalmo a traditional Muranees technique from the island of Murano, in the Venetian lagoon. It is said that, the technique was developed in the Vennini factory.

The process goes like this; first a reddish amethyst bubble is prepared and a band of iris silver is wound onto the open end of the bubble and melted in.

Then a new bubble in hyacinth is prepared and opened into a cylindrical shape.

Measuring begins and the two separate bubbles are formed to exact diameters. Back and forth between the working bench and the fire; the two separate bubbles are dialed in before hot joining them with timing and the precision of a skilled assistant.

Once they are joined the punty is poped off of the hyacinth bubble. The objective at this point is to melt the connection line so that it smoothes out and can be blown up into its final cylindrical shape.