A Pontiac dealership used to be in the abandoned warehouse on 5200 Delmar Blvd. Today, it’s home to Third Degree Glass Factory, one of St. Louis’ staple glassblowing studios.

I stumble my way to Third Degree on a Thursday afternoon, sweaty and barely on time, as per usual. The building is some sort of brick warehouse, surrounded by an industrial area. There are a couple of garage doors affixed to the front—yet another indication of a longer history. The inside, though, stands in stark contrast: A sparkling gallery unfolds, with high walls filled with unique pieces and countless displays of works by a variety of St. Louis artists. The most salient part of it is the explosion of colors and shapes of blown glass and fused glass art pieces. As soon as you walk into the building, you’re thrown into a whirlwind of bright reds and yellows, pops of blues and greens, a million hues of purple, all immortalized onto glossy bowls, vases, plates, earrings, jewelry and other you-name-its.

Alberto De La Rosa

A Third Degree Glass Factory worker gives the final details to his new creation: a pumpkin. The factory was founded in 2002 by Wash U. alum Jim McKelvey and his friend Doug Auer.

I’m greeted by Nick Dunne, who’s Third Degree Glass Factory’s communications director. He’s kindly agreed to give me a tour of the gallery. I don’t know a lot about glassblowing, but I do get unreasonably excited about fire, so I’m pretty pumped about this experience.

He starts by explaining the history behind the place, along with explaining how artists can get their work on display at the gallery.

Simultaneously, he’s walking me through the gallery and explaining the various pieces. I’m starting to feel a little nervous about being around so much glass artwork. I have a tendency to, um, knock a number of things over in brisk succession. The second he pauses to take a breathe, I launch into a brief mode of panic.

“What if I accidentally break something?” I blurt out.

Dunne laughs. He says that they like when people touch things at the gallery.

“When we have guests here, we want them to touch the artwork. Since everything is for sale, we want people to pick it up and experience it because there’s a certain relationship you have with glass,” Dunne explains. “If you’re afraid to hold it, you’re more likely to drop it. But if you grab it with confidence, it’s completely different.”

Third Degree was the brainchild of Washington University alum Jim McKelvey and his friend Doug Auer, who co-founded the place in 2002. They first hatched the idea through a conversation. Both were involved in glassblowing, and they wanted to create a space specifically for glassblowing in St. Louis. After finding a dilapidated warehouse on Delmar Boulevard, they refurbished it by hand and adapted the space to their needs. The primary purpose of the space has been to support the glassblowing community; it gives artists a space to create, showcase and sell their art.

While initially functioning exclusively as a studio, Third Degree started to offer classes for aspiring glassblowers to help pay the gas bills. Glassblowing uses a lot of propane, and that stuff doesn’t come cheap. After getting requests from customers, Third Degree also started renting out the space for private parties and events.

The methodology is pretty straightforward: Artists can rent time in the studio and keep their work on display in the gallery. During the day, customers can come in and shop through the artwork, the prices of which can range from a few dollars to a few hundred bucks. Artists keep 75 percent of the profits from their sales of the pieces they sell. Over the course of a year, Third Degree has 70 to 80 artists circulate through. Some spend as much as five times a week and others as little as two times a year.

There are three main studios at Third Degree: the Hot Shop studio, the flame-working studio and the fused glass studio.

First, Dunne brings me to the Hot Shop studio, which is where traditional glassblowing happens. The space is large and airy, with furnaces taking the main stage. At 2100 degrees Fahrenheit, glowing furnaces hold 300 pounds of clear, molten glass. To create a piece, an artist would stick a pipe into the furnace and use it to pick up molten glass right onto the pipe. Then, they would take the pipe to another furnace—a reheating furnace—to reintroduce the molten glass to heat. Temperature is key, here: If the glass gets too cold during this transition, it could crack or shatter. The reheating furnace gradually brings the molten glass back to a malleable temperature. In between reheating the glass, the artist can use stainless steel and/or wooden tools to manipulate the glass’ shape and form. They can even blow directly into the pipe to inflate the glass like a bubble—very literally, they can blow glass.

Artists can also add color to the glass in a couple of ways. There’s “frit,” which is a compound of ground up glass crystals that comes in different colors. The color comes from distinct minerals and metals. When flit is infused into glasswork, the colored designs have a streaky or spotty effect. The other option is using color bars, which—you guessed it—are solid bars of color. These can be heated, melted down, and then rolled into glass pieces, giving the effect of solid colors. The color strategies are not exclusive to glassblowing—they also apply to flame-working and fused glass.

Frit becomes especially useful in the flame-working studio. Here, Dunne introduces me to Libby Leuchtman, who is the flame studio director. She specializes in making glass beads, which are made over an open-flame torch (hence the term “flame-working”). We walk in on her, luckily enough, making a bead. To make a glass bead, she first introduces the glass to an open-torch flame. Once it’s molten, she applies the glass to a metal rod—also known as a mandrel—and wraps the molten glass around it. By spinning the glass onto the mandrel, you can eventually get a bead.

Third Degree offers classes in flame-working, which is insane to me: Your first glass-working experience could involve a) an open flame and b) your hands near that flame and c) other people near that flame. Basically, I’m projecting a lot of my own fears of accidentally setting something on fire (ugh, wouldn’t that be so embarrassing?). I ask Leuchtman how long it takes to become fully comfortable with shoving your hands in front of a flame to confidently make a beautiful piece of art.

“It’s like math or anything else—it’s a matter of learning the basics and applying the time,” Leuchtman said. It’s probably important to add that she’s making a bead while she’s talking to me.

The next destination on our tour is the fused glass studio, which is run by Mark Salsbury. He—like Leutchman—is known nationally for his work. This is also Dunne’s main studio where he works and teaches. Fused glass doesn’t initially require heat, like glassblowing and flame-working do. Instead, artists start with cold sheets of glass, which are cut and layered to create flatter pieces, like plates. After being cut and layered, the glass is melted into the kiln.

There’s a room full of kilns. In here, Dunne shows me nine different kilns of varying sizes. The biggest kiln, nicknamed “The Big Beef,” spreads many feet wide and tall. It’s almost like a coffin for Dracula, if Dracula were also related to Bigfoot. The final stop on our destination is the cold working studio, which contains power tools and sanding equipment. Here, glass can be polished, shined and perfected.

Dunne and I round back to the front of the gallery, where I take another glance at the diverse displays of glasswork. Pretty awesome things can happen when you play with fire.

Check out Third Degree Glass Factory at their monthly open house event every third Friday of the month from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Check out a video on Third Degree Glass Factory made by our Senior Video Editor Alberto De La Rosa.