Our second visit to the Sonoran Glass School featured Jason Christian. He made a glass dragon, using local glass blowers to round out his team. It took two hours to make the dragon, but this is misleading. Earlier in the day, he had spent six hours making the head, scales, and other pieces he used in his demonstration. Here you see the glass used to make the body. The actual glass blowing was a very small part of the work. Danita and I finagled seats in the front row. The hot glass was pointed straight at me, which caused a moment’s discomfort. Throughout the process, I was amazed at how precise, careful, and quick the movements were. The smallest mis-step could destroy the work.

Here Jason rolled small cylinders of glass to add texture to the body.

Jason and the team are adding a small piece to the dragon, Torches are used to make. the glass where the piece will be placed quite hot so the piece will join the body. The rest of the body must be cooler so it retains its shape.

Jason is making adjustments to the body. Note that the smallest error by the helper (on the left) will break the glass and destroy the dragon.

The most difficult step is joining the head to the body.

This is the final adjustment and the best picture of the finished dragon. As soon as this was complete, the dragon was immediately rushed into an annealing oven. The dragon is slowly brought to room temperature over a 6 hour cooling period.

This is one of Jason’s dragons. It’s a little smaller. I found it on the internet for just $5,000. Jason’s 5-year-old son names the dragons. He thinks it’s cool that his dad makes dragons.