Ronnie Hughes works on one of his artistic glass creatons, a replica of a sunflower, at his studio in Laurel Springs.

Ronnie Hughes chose his art over psychology

Twenty-nine years ago, Ronnie Hughes had his life mapped out in front him. A recent graduate of Wake Forest, the Ashe County native decided to take time off from school before venturing into the graduate world of psychology.

The story of this venture is also in the March edition of Sunshine Artist, a show and festival magazine. One of Hughes’ flowers is featured on the cover.

Fielding his options to make a little money, Hughes was approached by Al Lipkin, a friend and chemistry professor at a neighboring university, who had an idea.

“He asked me I wanted to help him open up a novelty shop, he wanted to open up a glass shop in Winston-Salem,” Hughes said, adding that opening the shop looked like it would be a lot of fun.

“I didn’t have any art background or anything like that,” he said. “I thought it would make a fun hobby if nothing else. Over time, I just really fell in love with it and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Glassblowing

The couple have been living in Alleghany for a little over a year. As Hughes was working on a fiery sunflower, his wife, Chris explained the process of glassblowing.

“In layman’s terms, tubes or rods of borosilicate glass are heated to a temperature to reach a molten state and then it can be manipulated and blown,”she said.

Mr. Hughes explained that glass is a liquid in a super-heated state.

“It’s only when the glass is molten hot that it becomes workable,” he said. “Glass is a combination of sand, soda and lime. Glass starts softening up and molecules start moving around when the glass gets about 1,500 degrees. The blue part of the flame you see is about 4,000 degrees.”

Beginning his foray into glassblowing, he worked on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” characters. For the last 25 years, he has focused on the creation of wildflowers.

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