Vintage Weekend brings big crowds to glassworks

NZ Glassworks putting on a show as part of Whanganui's Vintage Weekend.

The New Zealand Glassworks' gallery and workshop are usually open seven days a week for people to visit, but numbers boomed as Vintage Weekend visitors came to watch glass being made.

"It was amazing, an amazing day yesterday," gallery assistant, Jackie Wilkie, said about Saturday where about 400 people visited through out the day.

She said one man in his 70s stole the show, with hundreds of people cheering him on.

"We had 10 people doing paper weight workshops," Wilkie said. "They had a great audience. We had one man who was assisted. He was on a zimmer frame, this man.

"And so everybody cheered and clapped and he did the big bow. It was just beautiful. I can't wait to see him today to show him his work."

NZ Glassworks regularly hosts workshops where people can spend 30 minutes being taught how to make a glass paperweight.

When they're finished the work goes in the annealer and the temperature comes down gradually overnight. The annealer is set at more than 500 degrees. It eventually brings the temperature down to below 100 degrees.

Wilkie was waiting in the gallery yesterday to give people their paperweights they had made in Saturday's workshops.

Glassworks is open for workshops one Saturday a month when people can join a paperweight workshop for $80.

NZ Glassworks manager Scott Redding said while they were normally open on weekends, it was good to be involved with Vintage Weekend.

"We are part of Vintage Weekend but we are open seven days a week so this is kind of a usual thing for us.

"I have to admit we've probably got four or five times the number of people in today than we normally would on a Sunday. It's been great."

The glass makers on the shop floor were getting pieces ready for a special chandelier that would be on display at the inaugural conference CoLab for Australia and New Zealand glass artists.

"It will have 500 pieces maybe more," Redding said. "It will hang down in the Sarjeant Gallery during the conference - its final home will be at the glassworks."