Glassblower shows just what it takes to perfect his creations

"It's all done by feel and experience," says Wilbat, who studied water color and drawing as a youth.

Admittedly a terrible painter, he switched to ceramics. But he was permanently sidetracked after discovering emerging techniques in the 1970s that allowed artists in private studios to make use of molten glass.

For the past 16 years, his workshop has been a small concrete block unit tucked away in a Mundelein industrial park. This is not a public gallery and aside from a few open houses a year, few outsiders witness the process.

Always, there's heat

Even with the office door closed, there is an underlying rumble -- the sound of natural gas used to fire the furnaces.

Always, there is heat. It emanates from one of two furnaces, the fires nearly blinding in intensity when the doors are open. Despite industrial fans pushing air from front to back, the heat is searing near the core and merely toasty beyond.

The fires rarely are extinguished, which is why after all these years Wilbat still gets to work about 7:15 a.m. He sometimes spends more than $2,000 a month on gas and electric and doesn't want to waste any time.

Every piece involves a series of steps starting with the furnace, where a 150-pound tank of molten crystal sits at a constant 2,200 degrees. A second furnace is used to reheat the work as it progresses.

The colors are melted and blown into thin plates consisting of a layer of colored glass, a layer of white glass and two surrounding layers of clear glass. These are cooled gradually at lower temperatures in any of five ovens, lest they shatter.

At the beginning

To start a project, Wilbat first cuts several pieces of colored glass into various shapes and sizes. These are heated to 1,000 degrees in what is known as a pick-up oven.

Next, he dons dark welders' glasses and wielding a 5-foot long stainless steel hollow rod, called a blow pipe, extracts a hunk of clear glass from the tank.

"It's scary because the fire is right there and the heat is right there in front of you," he said. The temperature in the room inches toward 90 degrees.

A plum-sized mass of glass the color of a Dreamsicle is then rolled into the shape of an egg. Wilbat blows through the pipe, which controls the flow of the molten glass.

"By blowing, the walls of the glass become thinner," he said. "It's the same weight but becomes more of a volume of glass."

A layer of crushed color, known as frit, is added as an overlay and thrust back into the inferno.

Colors come in the form of small glass rods shaped like candy canes from manufacturers in New Zealand, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

"How a painter goes to his palette and squeezes them out and mixes them -- I've got my colors already made," says Wilbat.

The artistic part

Blending them in specific patterns is where the artistry emerges.

Now, the piece glows like an orange setting sun. It quickly pales, assuming the lighter but still dense hue of a harvest moon.

As the layers are added, Wilbat carefully shapes the piece with specially carved molds of fresh apple or cherry wood and a wad of wet newspaper.

Layer follows layer and the piece, destined to become a vase, is the size of a 16-inch softball. It's rolled in white glass and decorative dots of color are added.

At this point, Wilbat is constantly turning and rolling the piece, fine-tuning the shape as his assistant, Arlo Fishman, keeps a steady flow through the blow pipe.

"Keep going. Keep going. Stop!" commands Wilbat.

'All by feel'

Now, he uses centrifugal force to elongate the glass, moving it side to side, like weed whacking. He switches the motion and the pipe is twirling like a baton. One last twirl and then the piece -- in this case a vase -- is slightly flattened with wooden paddles, again, all by feel.

He makes it look easy, despite working with a very, very hot substance. One would think burns would be a daily occurrence.

"I cut myself more," says Wilbat. "I have a lot of respect for the glass when it's hot and less respect when the glass is cold."

The last step is the knock-off, removing the piece from the pole. It's a one-shot deal.

Depending on the complexity, completing a piece can take 15 minutes to as long as four hours. Many of Wilbat's complicated pieces are influenced by expressionist painters of the 1950s.

"It's taken 15 or 20 years to get that expression, that energy, that influence. I look at them as almost paintings," he says.

"It just fascinates me I can do this every day and it changes every day."