It was difficult to pick a favourite piece in the Lava Glass sculpture garden in Taupo. I really liked the glass waterfall made with a series of shell platters that trickled water gently down a rock slope to the pond below.
Shell platter waterfall
And who wouldn’t want a bouquet of these giant glass flowers in their garden?
Striking giant flowers at Lava Glass
Even more unusual are the glass forests in giant paper weights. Some of the trees looked to me like petrified silver beet leaves, and the flowers looked like candy. They’re not ofcourse, leaves and lollies would be decimated with the kind of heat involved in glass sculpture. The paper weights are 8kg of solid glass and took two months to cool down!
Glass forests in giant paper weights
At the Lava Glass studio you can watch the glass blowing process – we saw molten glass shaped and blown to form a vase.
Work in progress
The high temperature needed to work with glass comes at quite a cost – the gas bill alone can be $5000 a month. Gas powers one of the furnaces that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at a temperature of 1060 degrees celsius. It explains in part why glass art is so expensive.
Starting to take shape
Glass blowing
A glass piece is around 500 degrees celsius when it’s finised being worked, it then goes into an electric powered annealer to slowly cool down, a process that prevents cracking. Generally a piece will come out the next day to be polished.
Glass artist Chris looking over his near finished product
You can walk through the sculpture garden and watch a glass artist at work for $10pp, good value I think. It’s worth noting that the glass artist/s are working to a production schedule so they won’t always have the time to answer questions, there’s a handy FAQ sheet though for those interested in the nitty gritty.
More beautiful glass work in the garden
The Lava Glass complex also has a cafe with an outdoor area, and a gallery full of glass art for sale. In summer the sculpture garden doubles as a concert venue, it’s possibly the only place in the world where you’ll be entertained among giant flowers and glass forests.
Sculpture garden/summer concert venue at Lava Glass
Hi there im just wonderin how do we find you guys to come view and maybe puchase sum glass art from you i am in hastings for the next day or so and will be headn back to the bay of islands on tuesday
Hi there
We don’t make glass art, I just wrote about our visit to Lava Glass in Taupo. You’ll find Lava Glass north of Taupo on State Highway 5 – http://www.lavaglass.co.nz.