A museum of art glass may appear in the Rostov region

The family business of a Don master is the only one in Russia that combines all the technologies for processing hot and cold glass. Yuri Ignatov restores pre-revolutionary stained glass windows and trains modern glassblowers. Details in the story "Vesti. Don":

Mikhail Marchenko shares the secrets of ancient craftsmanship. This is one of the few skills where craft does not just border on art. It also requires a special intuition and even, as Mikhail Borisovich says, a little magic.

"Any material requires an approach. Any. But this material is magical," says 5th-category glassblower Mikhail Marchenko.

There are only a few specialists like him in the entire country. He is ready to share his experience, but not everyone is able to reach its heights. An apprentice glassblower must not only master the sequence of actions, he must be able to see and appreciate the beautiful.

"We take hot, shapeless glass and make such beauty. This, in my opinion, is the cool life of a master glassblower,” comments glassblower Evgeny Rudakov.

They would most likely have nowhere to demonstrate their philosophy and skills if it were not for the Ignatovs’ art glass workshop. Its owner, Yuri Ignatov, calls himself not a founder, but a continuer. His parents instilled in him a love for this type of art. But it was he who was able to organize a real production of unique glass products from a tiny handicraft workshop.

“If at the 2008 stage we had two tables, three machines, now we have eight tables, sixteen machines and a large number of employees,” says Yuri Ignatov, CEO of the art glass workshop.

They started, like many others, with assembling stained glass. Openwork and elegant so-called “Tiffany stained glass” — using copper foil between glass fragments. Classic ones — with a massive lead profile. Gradually they reached such heights that they were invited to recreate the stained glass windows of the Novocherkassk Cathedral that had been lost for many years, instead of which there had been simple painted glass.

“These are really real pieces of glass. We selected exactly the color scheme that was originally conceived by the stained glass artists before us,” comments the chief artist Svetlana Ignatova.

A separate smalt workshop. Special colored glass, welded with the addition of chalk. The artist works with it, like with paints on a palette, creating a mosaic canvas.

“The smalt is split into small pieces and laid out by the artist according to the colors. Those that the artist painted,” says the head of production Maria Olennikova.

This is how Byzantine churches were once decorated. But now, for example, a coal mining enterprise can be decorated. One of them now has this panel with miners, made in the Ignatovs’ workshop. Here they have mastered literally all the techniques of working with artistic glass: painting using silicate firing paints, lampwork or jewelry glass, fusing, and tinting. But Yuri calls the gutta technique — blowing glass on a hot section — the most important achievement. This is the most difficult. The thing is that the equipment for melting glass is very specific and hard to access. You can try to find an imported furnace, or you can design it yourself. As the Ignatovs did. Now this furnace is in the process of commissioning. Having reached the heights of mastery, they could rest on their laurels. But the Ignatovs' ambitions are not limited to just the workshop. They plan to create an artistic glass cluster. It could combine the production of products, training of individual specialists, manufacturing equipment and raw materials — almost no one produces artistic glass in Russia. Well, and the popularization of glassmaking as a special kind of art. The result could be the opening of several dozen full-fledged workshops like this one in the country. "They won't be able to make many products. They will be able to make a quantity of products that will allow them to implement their plans and be self-sufficient," says Yuri Ignatov, CEO of the art glass workshop.

Yuri Ignatov would like to start implementing his plans to create a cluster by expanding his own workshop. It is difficult to do this without investment and government support. We need a spacious, separate building that could accommodate not only workshops, but also a museum of art glass. They have already developed a collection here and are ready to exhibit it.

"We will not only be able to sell something, that is not the goal. We can hook people so that they will say that it is interesting," comments Yuri Ignatov, CEO of the art glass workshop. Such unique productions can also act as points of attraction for tourists. Despite the fact that the Ignatovs' workshop is currently huddled in a small basement on the outskirts of Rostov, more than three thousand people have visited it on excursions in a year.

Source: dontr.ru