# Funerary glassblower in Toronto fashions a funeral urn



## Arob (Jun 26, 2015)

hey thought you guys might like this,
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





i watched a custom funerary glass artist in Toronto named Eric Davy blow a funeral urn on the wknd and learned a lot about glassblowing. In the picture above, Eric is dipping the blow pipe into the furnace to get a hot 'gather' of molten glass.  The story is that because the price of cremations has fallen so severely in Canada, its resulted in an unexpected upswing in funerary glass art work being commissioned for memorials,  Digital Journal Cheaper Cremations increase Funerary GlassEspecially memory glass in which the ashes of the cremated family member can be seen swirling about inside the glass. Memory glass sculptures are as old as the Romans and I think they work best when the glass is fashioned into white objects, like doves, bones, bunny rabbits and angels. While we watched, Eric make a funerary glass url for holding the ashes of the dead.  I learned the way the glass blower gets the creamy white interior of the vase is by starting with a molten white colour block on the pipe.
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




The he 'gathers' glass from the furnace and shapes it on the marver (metal table)
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




and the way he gets colour on the outside of the vase is by rolling a diamond shaped cone of glass,
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Another thing i understood and appreciated for the first time is the inherent difficulty of the transfer of the uncut glass bubble from the rod to the 'punty' .
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




The whole story is at Dumpdiggers Blog, Glassblowing with Eric Davy, Funerary Glass Artist in Toronto. I dont do very much digging anymore. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




This is an example of a custom glass funeral urn.


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## goodman1966 (Jun 26, 2015)

Very nice write up ! Very informative ! I did not know that's how they do the colors, now I do !   Mitch


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