Tim de Jong came to Texas on holiday in 1991, decided to stay, and opened a glassblowing studio here the following year. Wimberley Glassworks has occupied its current building on Ranch Road 12 since 2006, and it does something few working studios do: it gives the furnace floor over to the public. Free hot-glass demonstrations run on a schedule through the week, close enough that you feel the heat coming off the glory hole. De Jong studied glass at Alfred University in New York and holds a fine arts degree from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. Demonstration times are posted rather than continuous, so it is worth checking the day's schedule before making the turn off Ranch Road 12. The studio's main line is hand-blown lighting, made to order, alongside art glass. Blown glass is worked at around two thousand degrees Fahrenheit and has to be turned constantly, because gravity is pulling it out of shape the entire time it is off the bench. That is why a demonstration looks like a relay and sounds like one, with several people moving around a single gather of hot glass. A finished piece then has to cool slowly in an annealing oven, sometimes for more than a day. Cooled too fast, glass locks in internal stress and eventually cracks on its own, often weeks later and without being touched. Nearly everything difficult about the craft is a consequence of that one property.
Getting there
29.9981, -98.0997
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
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