SAUGATUCK, Mich. — Imagine.
Imagine believing something all your life and discovering that not only was that idea wrong...you were the person who proved it wrong, and it was changing your life.
Welcome to the world of Jeff Blandford.
Like every other glass artist around the world, he had been told that you can't blow glass out of beach sand. Tragic, isn't it? That there are millions, probably billions of pounds of sand around the world that are hands-off to glass blowing artists. Blandford simply did not believe it and wanted to prove it could be done.
"I was told it wouldn't work. I understood my friends' points," Blandford said. "I did my research, which led me to the beginning of studying ancient Roman glass. I figured they didn't have much. What were they able to do with limited technology? I didn't think it would work. But it has, and it surpassed my hopes."
According to Blandford, the sand around southwest Michigan is used for industry, cement-making and even glass-making. But there's never been a glass blower that's used it and made it to create a quality, stretchable, blowable glass.
"The point that my friends made was that there's no efficient way of separating, separating out the materials you want from the sand and the materials you don't want — not necessarily pollution, but tiny stones," Blandford said.
Go to the beach, take the sand in your hand and you can see why it's impossible. That's sand in your hand, but it's not just sand.
"We're after silica and there's stones, there's iron, there's all these other ingredients. My solution was to melt it all, get it hot enough, melt it long enough," Blandford said. "Through a lot of poking around, I found the right combination of things that turn it into a beautiful glass."
Blandford is not only blowing the glass, he is making beautiful examples of how the impossible can become the possible.
He is not kidding about the beauty. Made on his farm in his studio outside of Saugatuck, Blandford has perfected the art, and the color is beautiful. First, appearing brown and orange, after a day of cooling, the glass takes on a blue/teal color, rich and made even more special by bubbles and dents in the work.
Much of Blandford's life has been spent here, and the reality that he has invented something so close to home, that no one has done before, isn't lost on him.
"Humbling. It's cool. It lights me on fire like I never have been before. The potential is huge," Blandford said. "I want to make windows. It's as if everything I have done in the past doesn't exist, and I want to focus on this new thing, and it's also very special. As a youngster, I played in the sands, and I always wondered what the sands were made of and what it could be in glass. But how so? It's come very full circle being that I've grown up around here."
Blandford started collecting sand, not directly from the beach but from sand that had blown over the dunes and then cleared from the sidewalk of a home. He continues to gather sand in that fashion today.
PHOTOS: Jeff Blandford Gallery
His gallery is in downtown Saugatuck, a place that has been a haven for artists for 114 years. The town is made up of potters and painters, glass artists and sculptors and to come up with a new — up until now — unknown way to blow glass at this time and in this place is special.
Blandford's journey has been 21 years so far. As a teen, he participated in art fairs, then attending Michigan State, then eventually starting his own gallery with different and evolving kinds of art.
Much has changed, but one thing has not: Lake Michigan has inspired and continues to inspire him, and there isn't another place Blandford would be than on its ever-changing shores.
"Boy, I have, like many people, a thousand different Lake Michigan memories, beach memories. My parents have a small little boat we would go out on the weekends. It's so refreshing. It's so fresh, it's so natural, and Michigan's wonderful," Blandford said. "I've always liked that. It's so natural around here. You can go places, and the dunes have been the same for thousands of years."
The dunes may have not changed, but the use of the sand has, and Blandford has turned stuff you pour out of your shoe after a day on the beach to an artistic form that may change the art world for a long time to come.
Blandford has imagined the impossible, and we all are the better for it.
- Chuck's Big Adventure in southwest Michigan: Redamak's
- Chuck's Big Adventure in southwest Michigan: Boating in Saugatuck
- Chuck's Big Adventure in southwest Michigan: Retro Boat Rentals
- Chuck's Big Adventure in southwest Michigan: Holland all year long
- Chuck's Big Adventure in southwest Michigan: Dutch heritage of Holland