Nicole Tremblay
Fireweed Glass Studio

Nicole Tremblay grew up in Victoria, BC. and Calgary, AB. She always knew she wanted to be an artist, in fact never seriously considered any other career. She attended the Alberta College of Art and Design and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with a specialization in glass in 1998. She worked on her own designs, mostly functional blown glass and glass beads, and started assisting artist Susan Gottselig in the hot shop. Nicole moved out to Toronto, Ontario, where she continued to pursue her art at the Galactic Art Glass Studio and fell in love with southern Ontario. Eventually the fresh Rocky Mountain air overpowered and lured Nicole back to Canmore, AB., where she reconnected with Susan, and made The Hot Glass Studio home base for her art practice. Since 2004 Nicole has been living and working in Canmore. She designs and blows, one by one, glass vases, bowls, scent bottles and ornaments, and makes glass beads at a torch which she uses in her jewelry designs. She also continues to work with Susan Gottselig. The artwork of Nicole Tremblay is represented by Rowles & Company, Alberta’s Corporate Gift and Art Gallery, in Edmonton.

PROCESS

A silica sand mixture is melted into glass in a specially designed furnace at 1300 degrees Celsius and the furnace needs to be kept at 1140 degrees Celsius 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The clear molten glass is the consistency of molasses and emits its own light. The artist gathers glass at the end of a hollow stainless-steel pipe, blows a bubble and uses heat, gravity and centrifical force to create. Colored glass can be added to the work in progress in the form of powdered granulated glass which will stick to the molten clear glass that has been freshly gathered out of the furnace. The glass needs to be reheated often as there I sonly about two-minute window where it’s soft enough to work. When the piece is finished, it is broken off the pipe and placed in a hot kiln which will cool it down slowly over a day or longer depending on how thick the glass is. Once cool, the piece needs to be ground where it was attached to the pipe and signed. Glass blowing is hot, fast, loud and very sweaty.