When Alan Goldfarb works, he performs a strange dance. He sits, stands, spins and sits again, moving gracefully and precisely. His stage is a rough concrete floor, with unfinished tables scattered about like so many props. Forming a formidable backdrop are three steel furnaces, raging with blinding orange heat. At 2400 degrees, heat moans like angry wind.

Despite the dramatic setting, Goldfarb’s performance has nothing to do with theater. His true art is quieter, more introspective. His medium is fragile: glass. Delicate hand-blown mugs, vases and goblets contrast sharply with his steel and concrete workspace in Burlington’s North End, but Goldfarb finds contradictions compelling. “My thing right now,” he explains, “is to create a bridge between contemporary glass techniques and the time before the Industrial Revolution. I’m creating hybrids.”

Hybrids have never looked so good. For the past four years of his 16-year career, Goldfarb has been designing and producing hand-blown glassware that combines traditional ceramic shapes with stained-glass colors and surface textures of ancient glass. His Celtic cups, for example, are goblets of assorted shapes and sizes bearing ominous-looking thorns or “prunts” around the stem.

Another design from Goldfarb’s “Historical Derivation Studies” is his silver scavo amphora. Here, Goldfarb plays with an ancient Greek vessel traditionally used to store oil or wine by adding a surface treatment that originated in Murano, Italy. The blue and matte surfaces are finished first with a silver-leaf glaze that cracks into variegated patterns. Next, Goldfarb applies a scavo coating that gives the pieces an aged or excavated appearance, and ecco: Old and new unite in stunning equilibrium.

“It’s a balancing act,” says Goldfarb, explaining how he juggles modernity and antiquity in his latest designs. That balancing act is also an appropriate metaphor for Goldfarb’s life. The 36-year-old, New York-born artist is determined to maintain a contemporary, lucrative production studio while immersing himself in the study of ancient glass.

“The two are often antithetical,” he admits. “I get no funding beyond what I sell. My grey hairs come from trying to make ends meet.” Grey hairs must be worth it, for Goldfarb’s commitment to the task extends beyond erudition: It has become his defining factor in art, as in life.

“I’m exploring my connections to the archetypal spirit of glass,” says Goldfarb, pointing to his selection of exquisitely delicate stemware modeled after traditional Venetian designs. “The Italian maestros who first blew glass transcended the material and expressed their souls. Their elemental humanness came together with the elemental qualities of glass, revealing a broader human spirit.”

Goldfarb’s fascination with classical Venetian styles was cultivated during his study with Lino Tagliapietra, an internationally acclaimed Italian glass master. Under Tagliapietra Goldfarb learned the art of “team blowing,” a technique that requires two skilled artisans. The team leader — or gaffer — spools molten glass onto the end of a long, thin blowpipe. The second team member — called a servitor — kneels at the mouth of the pipe and blows high-pressure air down the tube, transforming the red-hot glob into an eggshell hard cavity. The gaffer colors, shapes and decorates the vessel before allowing it to cool in a 1000-degree oven. 

By recreating original techniques and forms, Goldfarb’s challenge is two-fold. First, he must perfect highly complex glass-blowing skills that usually demand a lifetime of study. That goal is daunting in itself: Only 20 glass-workers in the United States have mastered techniques born during the Italian Renaissance. “Today, most glass workers rely on automated glass pressing rather than hand-blown pieces. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not on any Luddite trip against technology. I just want to create a foundation for my art, and that foundation was built 6000 years ago.”

As Goldfarb forges an archetypal foundation, his next challenge is to put a contemporary mark on the work. Although he asserts that some of his best pieces are created when he simply “gets out of the way” of the material, glass enthusiasts maintain it’s Goldfarb’s presence that makes his work so powerful. Robin Mix, a professional glassblower in Tunbridge, explains: “Alan combines refined, subtle colors and flawless execution. In particular, he puts a lot of energy into perfecting a surface technique such as the rough, scavo finish. By making it less ‘pretty,’ he succeeds in deglamorizing the material and giving it unusual depth.”

Examples of Goldfarb’s depth are displayed locally at the Frog Hollow Gallery on Church Street — President Clinton bought a $90 silver-leaf vase when he visited Burlington this past summer. In the next year, his work will appear at two of the nation’s most prestigious craft shows. While Goldfarb contends that support for glass work is often lacking in Vermont, his vision for the future is optimistic. “After 16 years in this business, I’m finally starting to feel grounded. When I work through my personal limitations, my designs will be both creative and technically deep. This is my path,” he adds. “This is the work that heals me.”

This article appears in October 4 • 1995.