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As a boy, Bob Broschart learned woodworking skills from his father. Bob used his skills around the house, renovating and building furniture during his career as a railroad engineer traveling around the Mid-Atlantic states. In retirement, he turned his hobby into a profession. He began to make organically shaped bowls out of burls - the gnarled bulge of a tree that has unusual grain because of compression. After learning that glassblowers at the historic Wheaton glass factory in Millville, New Jersey needed wooden molds, he learned to make the traditional shapes they needed.
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When designing his bowls, Bob says, "the wood shows me where to go." He hollows a burl to best display its interesting features, whether they are striations, whorls, holes or color variations.
Woodturning is a process where wood is shaped while revolving on a fixed point. Bob Broschart uses woodturning to create bowls and wooden molds for traditional glassblowers. Bob lives in South Jersey, which was a major center for glassmaking into the early twentieth century. The Wheaton Glass Factory still depends on traditional cherry wood molds hollowed out by hand or lathe to the desired shape of the finished piece.
Molten glass is gathered on the end of a blowpipe and placed in a mold. The glassblower then blows through the pipe to shape the glass, takes the glass out, and smoothes it with a wooden "block." When Bob learned that the Wheaton craftspeople needed wooden molds, he apprenticed with Walter Evans of West Virginia, one of the last wooden mold makers. Bob's work is helping to preserve both this skill and the tradition of South Jersey hand-blown glassware.
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Bob Broschart, Woodworker,
NJN/State of the Arts, 2008 (2:43)
