The university's lone glassblower

In the Chemistry Building at Blindern there is, unknown to many, a glass blowing shop run by glass blower Elijah Aller.

Two years ago, he got a phone call from Æsa Bjørk, a glass artist and the creative director of the gallery and workshop S12 in Bergen. She told him that the artist Ane Graff was looking for a glassblower to help with a project for the new Life Science Building at the University of Oslo. Would this be something Elijah Aller could do?

– I can try, he answered. Not long after, the artist showed up at his shop with a 3D model she wanted him to blow. Elijah Aller gave it a try, the artist was happy, and the deal was done.

Third generation glass artist

Elijah Aller is one of Norway's rare technical glassblowers. He also describes himself as third generation glass artist. His grandfather taught glassblowing at the Arizona State University. Elijah himself grew up in Oregon where his mother worked with fusing and slumping glass, mostly making things for interior decoration like tiles and lampshades, he explains. 

When Elijah was fifteen years old, his mother brought him along on a visit to friends who worked with stained glass.

– With the scrap glass they blew glass beads for decoration, and they let me try, he recalls.

His mother, who saw that her son enjoyed working with the glass, gave him his first glass blowing kit for his sixteenth birthday.

– Some years later I took some classes, but I am mostly self-taught, he says.

– I don’t have time for an apprentice

In the USA Elijah made his living as an artist until his wife in 2011 got a post.doc. -position at Physics of Geological Processes (PGP), a Center of Excellence at the University of Oslo. Elijah joined as a part-time laboratory assistant. Two years later they were both employed by The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED). Aller, still working part time, discovered that the Department of Chemistry has a glass blowing shop. Back then it was run by the technical glassblower Terje Hansen.

– Terje began as an apprentice when he was fifteen. When I got to know him, he had been working as a glassblower at the university for 40 years, Elijah recalls.

When Elijah asked if he could use some help, Terje Hansen’s first reaction was: I don’t have time for an apprentice. But learning that Aller was a fully trained glassblower, Hansen accepted the offer. Gradually Elijah spent more time in the shop, until he got the position as a full time technical glass blower in 2017, prior to Hansen's retirement.

Since Elijah got the position, he has completed hundreds of hours of courses in technical glassblowing. Once a year, he attends a week-long conference on technical glassblowing

– The university has a supportive atmosphere for learning and growth, he says. 

When Uniforum comes to visit, Elijah is in the process of repairing a broken separatory funnel. He starts by heating the funnel from below with a Bunsen burner to avoid it from cracking when he starts to expose the damaged part to higher temperatures. Before melting a new drip tip onto the funnel, he removes the rough edges and cleans the ends using a process he describes as fire polishing. Dust will end up as bubbles and make the piece more fragile.

Elijah Aller often repairs cracked and broken funnels, but he seldom blows them. The cost of buying a funnel is normally lower than making it from scratch, he explains. But sometimes researchers need more complex glassware and custom-made objects. In these cases Elijah will design and make the objects in close cooperation with the researchers.  

Parts of his work is for the University of Oslo, and part of it is commissioned by external institutions and companies. At the university the glassblower works mostly for the Institute of Chemistry and other units at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, but he also does some work for the Faculty of Medicine .

A dying craft

In an interview with the university's research magazine Apollon in 2012, the university's former glassblower was described as one of seven remaining technical glassblowers in Norway. Now the number is down to six, according to Elijah. He fears technical glassblowing is a dying craft. 

As his predecessor, Elijah does not have time to take in an apprentice. 

– I sometimes work on more than a hundred items a week, he says. In addition, there is maintenance work to be done and administrative work such as taking orders, purchasing materials, and issuing and processing invoices. 

Working alone has its disadvantages, he admits.

– When I'm ill, there is no one to do the work, and it would be nice to have someone to talk about glass with, he says and adds: – If there were two of us, we could employ an apprentice.

A chemical process that takes a week

The day of Uniforum's visit is not arbitrarily. Elijah is about to start working on the parts of Ane Graff's large red neuron.

The working title of the sculpture is Neurons in the Brain. Elijah shows us a sketch. When completed the sculpture will take the form of a large cabinet filled with a gigantic red neuron. 

If you look at neurons in a microscope you will see that they have projections that resemble branches. Elijah's mission in the project is to make those branchlike structures out of red glass. On a desk by the window lays more than hundred red tubes intended for the sculpture. The process of finding the right red color took one and a half years, Elijah reveals. 

–  It is difficult to obtain a red color which gives the same shade every time. Normally you end up with five or six colors, he explains.

He does not know exactly which substances are used in the red glass tubes, but he reckons that one of the components is copper. What he does know, is that the color is the result of a chemical process that takes a week, and that the red tubes are ten times as expensive as the non-colored glass tubes.

Ready to be blown

Before Elijah starts blowing the red glass into the correct shapes, he need to make sure every part has the right diameter and thickness.

He picks up two tubes from the desk, one slightly thinner than the other, and places the thickest tube onto the machine.  He enlarges and allonges the tube by blowing into it while using a thinner glass tube as a handle to stretch out the glass. As the glass gets hot, the crystals in the glass dissolve causing the red color to disappear temporarily. 

The next step is to melt the two parts together. When this is done, Aller puts the modified tube into an annealing oven. This is a type of oven used to slowly cool glass, as abrupt cooling might also cause it to crack. As the glass cools, the red color returns. 

The tube is now ready to be blown into the right shape.

– Shaping it based on the model is the tricky part, Elijah Aller says.

He describes this blowing as delicate work. The glass needs to be extremely clean. Fingerprints contain substances like salt and oil, which will affect the glass. If he blows too hard, he might pop a hole in it.

An environment that produces inflammation

From the artist we get a sketch of the sculpture. «I’m still in the process of making the sculpture, so I’m a bit unsure which materials will make it into the final piece. What’s absolutely certain is that it will be about neuroinflammation – about low-grade, chronic inflammation in the brain», Ane Graff reveals in an email to Uniforum.

In the email, Ane Graff shares her reflections on the artwork: «Neuroinflammation shifts and alters us in slow ways: how life feels from the inside, how thoughts arise, how memories are recalled. My practice as a whole is about how the subject is shaped by contact. Every human being is a rhythm of biochemical movements, a membrane where the world inscribes itself. There is something about the way we live our lives, and how they are shaped by the systems around us, that I want to address. As individuals, we can’t necessarily control the systems we’re placed within, and we’re exposed to a multitude of stressors such as chronic stress, environmental toxins and endocrine-disrupting chemicals, long-term infections, air pollution, ultra-processed food, trauma, and persistent cortisol activation. We live in an environment that produces chronic inflammation as a basic condition — and this puts us under pressure in so many ways. I wanted to create a work that speaks about the brain and about how the brain is affected in our time».  

A big technical challenge

 Elijah Aller is happy to be part of the process.

– It is exciting to be involved in this art project. The work is a big technical challenge. I am glad that it is for the Life Science Building at the University of Oslo, he says.