Pattern-Seeking

ANCY CALLAN has caught on fire. Not metaphorically—literally. When she’s working on her pieces in the hotshop, assistants have to hold wooden paddles to shield her arms and torso from the heat, and on more than one occasion, her clothes have ignited anyway. It’s hardly surprising, considering that glass artists have to handle liquefied red-hot glass right out of furnaces where temperatures average 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit, in order to get the effects they desire. Like her peers in this challenging art form, Callan relishes this primal encounter with the raw material. “I’ve been blowing glass for 27 years, and I still find the magic every time I work.” says the Massachusetts native, who now lives and works in Seattle, the country’s