Occasionally, one enters a new shop lured by an intriguing sign and finds a whole new world surpassing expectations. This could be said of Robert Kuster and his staff’s wondrous creations at Belle Mead Hot Glass.
A Monday morning spent watching Kuster and his assistant of seven years, Kelly Moyers, work in their studio was a peaceful experience. With three hot fires and one firing oven for annealing the finished glassware in operation, they have reason to slow down and be careful. Their practiced, almost choreographed movements seem like a dance performance.
The studio, at 884 Route 206, Hillsborough, is marked by a green and gold sign on the southbound side of State Road, just before Montgomery, and they are online at http://bellemeadhotglass.com.
Driving past a residence, one approaches the studio, a cozy one-story workshop with a blown glass garden outside. Even the gravel has trinkets of colorful blown glass mixed in, and looking up, visitors are greeted by a stunning decorative glass bouquet that cheers up a cold wintery day.
Kuster, who has been blowing glass for 28 years after having taken a workshop on blown glass with his sister, is known for his chandeliers that customers from far and wide order, and for decorative plates that can be used as the centerpiece for a table or mounted on a wall. After crafting machinery for woodworkers in the 1980s, he “discovered glass and got hooked on it.”
Belle Mead Blown Glass can craft all the metal fixtures and electrical wiring needed to finish some of the completed units or fixtures. A small gift shop features individual glass items, including glass pumpkins and vases made by Moyers, and other decorative cups, plates and glassworks. She become interested in glassware and glass blowing through her family.
Focusing on larger commercial projects, the team has traveled around the United States and the world creating installations such as a 45-foot-long installation of glass plates for Parx Casino in Pennsylvania. The glass is 95 percent silicon complemented by soda-ash and lime that is required for their technique.
They make only artistic glass creations and are not typically found in booths at crafts shows, marketing their custom work to architects and designers instead.
“We’re always in a constant process of installing,” said Moyers about some of the work that is found in the studio.
She writes the blog posts on their website and fields questions regarding the work of the studio. They are a fun team, but when the furnaces are running, it’s all business.
First, Kuster takes a “punty,” or hot metal rod, from the small furnace and retrieves a glob of molten glass from the crucible in their central furnace. Then, blowing out through a long hose into the glass, he puffs up and shapes the new creation with metal tools and a pad of folded up oil-soaked newspaper that looks like a "tuffy" sponge.
Then it’s time for the transfer. Moyers uses a second “punty” to take the blown glass on the end from Bob, and together they finish the creation. A visitor is told to stay behind a wooden bench, or, better yet, sit down even further away from the center stage of the glassworks.
This day they are first making a “Beggars Purse,” which is a clear glasswork with a green glass bow tied around the middle of a vase suitable for holding paper narcissus or some other suitable gift.
“Kelly is going to bring me a ‘bit’ for the wrap,” said Kuster, a reserved but friendly man who likes to bicycle when not in the shop.
“That is what she is bringing me now,” he said.
Like an artist who twists balloons into funny shapes for children, he spins the glass and it turns into the finished creation before one’s eyes.
Then the vase must be placed in the annealing oven, or the entire glasswork will crack.