Just as the glass appeared to harden, Alex Dils dipped it into a nearby oven before returning to his workbench. As he carefully pressed metal tools to the side of his newly formed genie vase, the Robin Williams tribute piece shattered into cobalt-shaded fragments.
But Dils didn’t look shattered at the loss.
“When I’m trying new things it’s not about what you can make, it’s about what you can keep,” he said.
It’s not uncommon for glass to break during the glass blowing process, so Dils says you just can’t get too attached to each individual piece.
The artist is new to glassblowing. Entering Ball State as a business major, Dils was inspired to go into art by another student during one of his economics lectures. As he was drawing pictures of the professor, he caught the student’s attention.
“Dude, what are you doing in here?” the student asked.
“That’s a good question,” Dils said. “I don’t know.”
The next day he went to the art department office and transferred, without any previous art classes. What might have seemed like a crazy move felt like a perfect fit to Dils.
“There’s something about glassblowing that’s insane and you have to be a little bit insane to try it, so I like that aspect,” Dils said. “I like that if you meet another person who’s a glassblower they’re probably just as crazy as you are.”
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