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Spacial Magazine

Turning Dreams Into Reality

By: Martin Váša Photo: Shotby.us
#Leaders
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Both hum­ble and tal­ent­ed. Both invis­i­ble and indis­pens­able. Glass­mak­er Marek Effmert is the link between the wildest, at first sight often unat­tain­able, fan­tasies of an artist and their final phys­i­cal form, which can be admired in shops with design­er acces­sories and at the renowned Milan Design Week. There are two keys to suc­cess in his pro­fes­sion, and Marek has them both: a pas­sion for glass and the courage to take risks.

Marek may be turn­ing the dreams of oth­ers into real­i­ty, but his pro­fes­sion is not his dream come true. Cer­tain­ly not as much as it was for his father who, unlike his son, was always fas­ci­nat­ed by glass.

“We have a cot­tage in the Gratzen Moun­tains. When I was fif­teen, my father read some­where that there was an aban­doned 17th cen­tu­ry glass melt­ing fur­nace in the near­by Terči­no Val­ley. It had no pro­tec­tion against rain and was over­grown with net­tles, so he took me there to clean it and cov­er it with a roof. While doing this, I found a cru­ci­fix pen­dant. My dad told me then that it was a sign. That I was now under an oblig­a­tion to become a glass­mak­er.”

Part of the deal was that the first choice sec­ondary school would be up to Marek. If not accept­ed, he would train to be a glass­mak­er, to com­ply with his father’s request. “I do not even know why, I chose a sec­ondary school of con­struc­tion,” he laughs. “And I end­ed up eleventh among those who did not get in…” The future was decided.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
It is Marek’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to pre­pare the design for the leg­endary Salone del Mobile design fair in Milan. It all starts with a design pitch, totalling some six­ty pro­pos­als. From these, the Art Direc­tor selects the top twen­ty. “Max­im Velčovský makes sure the item looks good and is aes­thet­i­cal­ly attrac­tive. I look at it from a crafts­man­ship point of view; if it is going to be a chal­lenge for me to make it – if it is some­thing that has not been done before.”

At that time, glass­mak­ing struck him as a craft that is passed on from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. He would nev­er have imag­ined that he would be able to do some­thing like this pro­fes­sion­al­ly one day. His father took him to the glass­works in Světlá nad Sáza­vou, where he asked the fore­man whether his son would be capa­ble of work­ing with glass. The fore­man grabbed a broom and threw it at Marek. He caught it, the glass­mak­er con­tin­u­ing to look at him with inquir­ing eyes. “He can hold the broom just fine. He will be ok!”

“Once you get too con­fi­dent, the glass will pun­ish you. A hum­ble approach to glass is the most impor­tant thing!”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Marek also spe­cial­izes in mak­ing the object easy to pro­duce in the glass­works and ensur­ing that the glass­mak­ers know how to cre­ate every lit­tle aspect of the object. That’s why he often explains the details right in the glass­works – through his own chalk draw­ing direct­ly on the floor.

LEERDAM IS TO THE NETHERLANDS WHAT NOVÝ BOR IS TO THE CZECH REPUBLIC

Upon com­ple­tion of his stud­ies, he was expect­ed to start work­ing in the glass­works his father had estab­lished in the mean­time in their home vil­lage of Hrdějovice. It only took Marek six months at school to fall in love with the craft of glass­mak­ing but, after fin­ish­ing fur­ther edu­ca­tion in Nový Bor, he was inter­est­ed in going to places oth­er than south­ern Bohemia. Next stop: Leer­dam, The Netherlands.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality

“I went to The Nether­lands for a study vis­it and stayed for four and a half years,” he says. “It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence, I could prac­tice glass­blow­ing every day, spend time in the glass-cut­ting work­shop, melt glass… I learned a great deal there.” He found his niche in a stu­dio col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Nation­al Glass Muse­um in Leer­dam. When some of the exhibit­ing artists want­ed to use glass, it was very like­ly they would join forces with Marek at some point. “Sud­den­ly I was not just cre­at­ing my own stuff and play­ing with glass, I was mak­ing things for oth­er peo­ple and the result had to be up to standard.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Prop­er tim­ing is the alpha and omega of every­thing. “If we open the mould too ear­ly, it affects the shape of the glass inside, but if we open it too late, it ‘freezes,’ as we say, and it becomes impos­si­ble to get it out.”

WHEN WORKING WITH GLASS, PILCHUCK IS A MUST DO

Then Marek was award­ed a schol­ar­ship to expand his knowl­edge at the pres­ti­gious sum­mer course at the mec­ca of glass – the Pilchuck Glass School. Out of the three hun­dred par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dents, he was the only one from Europe. “It changed my life,” he says, clear­ly not exag­ger­at­ing. “There, I saw things made of glass that I did not even know were pos­si­ble.” So, he spent three weeks deep in the woods, a two-hour bus ride from Seat­tle, in a com­mu­ni­ty of fel­low stu­dents, work­ing from morn­ing till night at the glass­works. He hap­pened to be taught there by Jiří Har­cu­ba, one of the great­est glass engrav­ing experts, orig­i­nal­ly from Bohemia. “I nev­er thought for a moment that I should be any­where else, this was a once-in-a-life­time opportunity!”

“There is noth­ing in our range now that is more dif­fi­cult to make. Dune is a sym­pho­ny per­formed by five glass­mak­ers work­ing on one piece!”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality

His visa for the Unit­ed States was not due to expire until a year and a half after the end of the course. He intend­ed to spend this time as an assis­tant in the stu­dio of artist Leon Apple­baum. “I went there with the idea that I could earn some extra mon­ey and vis­it Corn­ing at week­ends, which is twen­ty min­utes away, and where the most beau­ti­ful glass muse­um in the world is locat­ed.”

But then his phone rang. Mar­tin Janecký, a renowned artist spe­cial­is­ing on the ‘inside bub­ble sculpt­ing’ glass-shap­ing tech­nique whom he bare­ly knew, offered him a work trip to Alas­ka. Three weeks lat­er, Marek was on his way. He and Mar­tin spent three win­ters in Alas­ka, sculpt­ing “inside the bub­ble” and ski­jor­ing (in which Marek also won the gold medal for Alas­ka), before they both returned to the Czech Republic.

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE: FROM JAN KAPLICKÝ TO ZAHA HADIDE

“I was real­ly look­ing for­ward to this job, it was a huge chal­lenge for me,” says Marek, and even today, after more than sev­en years as a devel­op­er, you can hear the enthu­si­asm in his voice. “Design­ers come up with an idea that no one has ever tried before, and I have to work out how to make it attain­able,” he sums up his cur­rent job.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
“The moment when you put glass in the mould is the most dif­fi­cult and most impor­tant one. The mould must be per­fect­ly com­posed. For mak­ing Hid­den Light, for exam­ple, it con­sists of nine parts which must meld togeth­er per­fect­ly, oth­er­wise it shows on the final prod­uct. The glass­mak­ers must rec­og­nize that spe­cial moment when it is nec­es­sary to close the top and enclose the bub­ble. After that, all it takes is con­trolled blow­ing. Then you open the mould and take out the fin­ished prod­uct from its cage.”

Although the label in the store does not bear Marek Effmert’s name, he has played a key role in the pro­duc­tion of such icon­ic objects as the Cool­er designed by Jan Kaplický or the Eve and Duna lightings
by Zaha Hadid.

Marek was mak­ing the Cool­er short­ly after Kaplický’s death and was sor­ry they had not met. Espe­cial­ly since he was the first one who suc­ceed­ed in devis­ing a method for mak­ing the prod­uct to exact­ly cor­re­spond with the design. “The Cool­er is sup­port­ed by two feet that must look like they are made of the same piece of glass as the rest of the ves­sel, but they can­not in fact be attached in any oth­er way than by stick­ing them on. They can­not be made by pulling on the glass because it would deform its shape of the cool­er. But I brought a lot of tools from the States that nobody knew here, includ­ing an oxy­gen torch. I used it to heat the body of the Cool­er and then attached molten glass feet to it. They bond­ed so per­fect­ly to the heat­ed sur­face that it is impos­si­ble to tell they were attached at all.”

“I nev­er want­ed to be seen much. I pre­fer my work to be seen.”

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS NO

There is a Czech say­ing sug­gest­ing that peo­ple often end up doing what they ini­tial­ly reject­ed, and it is most def­i­nite­ly true in Marek Effmert’s case. He is lucky he learned to love work­ing with glass, and Czech glass­mak­ing is extreme­ly lucky he did. Effmert is con­sid­ered one of the bright­est stars of the glass­mak­ing indus­try. His exper­tise and skills as well as his achieve­ments are sim­ply unmis­tak­able and tru­ly unique. 

At sec­ondary school, he was lucky to be in the class with stu­dents who were gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed in the field, and yet today he is the only one of his class­mates who is pro­fes­sion­al­ly involved in glass­mak­ing. “After my gen­er­a­tion, there are no more glass­mak­ers here,” he says. Marek does not have to brag about any­thing, does not need to be seen. To be hap­py, all he needs is to accom­plish anoth­er extra­or­di­nary task – to make anoth­er dream come true.

Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
After tak­ing Hid­den Light out of the mould, it is still nec­es­sary to put a torch to it, and to line the lamp neck with a thin string of fresh glass which, like the torch, returns the nec­es­sary tem­per­a­ture to the glass product.

 


Marek Effmert comes from České Budějovice. He com­plet­ed train­ing at the glass­mak­ing school in Světlá nad Sáza­vou and con­tin­ued his stud­ies in Nový Bor. He also spent some time gain­ing expe­ri­ence in the glass­works built by his father in his home vil­lage of Hrdějovice. Dur­ing a study stay in Leer­dam, the Nether­lands, he had the first oppor­tu­ni­ty to give mate­r­i­al form to the visions of oth­er artists. He is still doing this at Lasvit, where he has been a mem­ber of the Research and Devel­op­ment team for over sev­en years. In addi­tion to what he learned in Leer­dam, he also con­tin­ues to build on the expe­ri­ence gained at the Pilchuck Glass School and on his long-stand­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with glass artist Mar­tin Janecký. His name is asso­ci­at­ed with the brand’s icon­ic pieces such as Jan Kaplický’s Cool­er, Zaha Hadid’s Duna and Jan Plecháč’s new Hid­den Light. He also par­tic­i­pates in the devel­op­ment of cus­tom-made projects. He has been part of the Lasvit fam­i­ly since 2015.

 

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Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
It is Marek’s responsibility to prepare the design for the legendary Salone del Mobile design fair in Milan. It all starts with a design pitch, totalling some sixty proposals. From these, the Art Director selects the top twenty. “Maxim Velčovský makes sure the item looks good and is aesthetically attractive. I look at it from a craftsmanship point of view; if it is going to be a challenge for me to make it – if it is something that has not been done before.”
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Marek also specializes in making the object easy to produce in the glassworks and ensuring that the glassmakers know how to create every little aspect of the object. That’s why he often explains the details right in the glassworks – through his own chalk drawing directly on the floor.
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Proper timing is the alpha and omega of everything. “If we open the mould too early, it affects the shape of the glass inside, but if we open it too late, it ‘freezes,’ as we say, and it becomes impossible to get it out.”
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
“The moment when you put glass in the mould is the most difficult and most important one. The mould must be perfectly composed. For making Hidden Light, for example, it consists of nine parts which must meld together perfectly, otherwise it shows on the final product. The glassmakers must recognize that special moment when it is necessary to close the top and enclose the bubble. After that, all it takes is controlled blowing. Then you open the mould and take out the finished product from its cage.”
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
Lasvit Spacial Magazine: Marek Effmert - Turning Dreams Into Reality
After taking Hidden Light out of the mould, it is still necessary to put a torch to it, and to line the lamp neck with a thin string of fresh glass which, like the torch, returns the necessary temperature to the glass product.

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