Alexander Fink burns for flames—literally so. Once a year, the stall for the glassblower from Ludwigshafen is the attraction at the Friesenheimer Weihnachtstreff Christmas market.
When the gas rushes and the heat intensifies, a large world opens up in Alexander Fink’s small workshop. No sooner has he put on his safety goggles than he gets started. Under the flame of the burner, he shapes and blows glass, turning it into Christmas tree toppers, Christmas baubles with holes or threads. He also makes small figurines such as owls, fir trees, jellyfish, elephants and turtles. He gives shot glasses faces and fine grappa bottles unusual shapes.
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“When I work on my art, I’m actually in constant conflict with myself,” says the man with the grey-streaked crew cut cheerfully, because in real life, absolute precision is the order of the day when he develops custom-made products for the research department of a chemical company. But here, in his private workshop, he can let his imagination run wild. Accuracy is essential for the glass apparatus engineer. And individuality is essential for the craftsman.
Alexander Fink has set up a small workshop in Ludwigshafen-Friesenheim.
Alexander’s Christmas baubles are on display and available for purchase at the Friesenheimer Weihnachtstreff Christmas market.
Tools everywhere, neatly lined up—an everyday scene in Alexander’s workshop.
Glass figurines are also created in the workshop.
Alexander Fink gives schnapps bottles an unusual shape...
...and sometimes even faces.
His private workplace measures just a few square metres and is equipped with a propane gas burner, a furnace, ventilation and a compressor, all set up under a carport next to his cosy blue cottage. In Friesenheim, green courtyards and small workers’ houses like his wife’s family home, built in 1890, are lined up close together.
The Fink family’s small blue cottage is located in the Friesenheim district of Ludwigshafen.
The Ebertpark town park, the Ebertsiedlung housing estate from the 1920s and the former Hallenbad Nord indoor swimming pool from the 1950s are not far away. Neither are the smoking chimneys of BASF. Alexander grew up in Essen, but has been at home in Ludwigshafen since his apprenticeship. “My paternal grandfather worked as a mining engineer at a mine in the Ruhr Area.” And his maternal grandfather was a master craftsman who made ornate rifle stocks with inlays and carvings, among other things. He was fascinated by craftsmanship even as a child. And by fire.
Our craft can hardly be replaced by machines or artificial intelligence
Alexander’s workplace is full of memorabilia such as photos, number plates of beloved vehicles, old advertising signs and an owl cushion—the symbol of Friesenheim. He has painted flames on a stove and on a sideboard. Slowly, he turns a glass tube with a ribbed structure in the heat of the burner until it begins to glow. He moves the glass precisely so that it deforms as evenly as possible in the flame, which is up to 2,300 degrees Celsius, and then blows carefully into it until the glass forms a ball. It takes ten minutes and several steps to complete the Christmas decoration in a constant process of heating and cooling, during which the glassblower must consider the tension of the material, master many techniques and have a lot of practice. This is because glass does not have a melting point like metal, but rather a melting range.
Alexander puts the glass tube, which is to become a tree bauble, to his mouth and blows carefully into it.
Once a year, Alexander demonstrates his skills at the Friesenheimer Weihnachtstreff Christmas market, located just a few minutes’ walk from his workshop. On two Sundays during Advent, the pretty little market is set up on Otto-Buckel-Platz, right next to the old Friesenheim district town hall, where local clubs such as the Ludwigshafen Murmelspielclub marble club offer arts and crafts and culinary delights. And he is happy to answer any questions that visitors may ask. He is also committed to his profession in other ways, for example, as a member of the advisory board of the Association of German Glassblowers, which has around 500 members, including some from the Netherlands and Austria. He conducts practical examinations twice a year as part of the journeyman and master craftsman examination board. But does his guild have a future?
“Our profession is not a large community, but it offers a wide variety of training opportunities, for example, as a thermometer blower, glass apparatus maker or art glass blower,” says Alexander. Rising prices for electricity and materials are the reason that fewer and fewer people are working in his field. “And yet, our craft can hardly be replaced by machines or artificial intelligence.” This is because his tasks are just as varied as the unique products he manufactures from different types of glass. For his craft, he uses borosilicate glass, which he knows well from apparatus engineering and which is very heat-resistant. He very rarely uses soft glass, which would be very sensitive.
Glass figurines are also created in the workshop.
“I estimate that there are about 100 people in Germany who work like me,” he explains. What he appreciates most about his everyday work is the variety of tasks. He often produces very small series or even prototypes. Sometimes he builds double-walled vessels and specially insulated columns that are used all over the world. “Glass is brittle and not very forgiving of mistakes. At the same time it has many advantages,” not least that it is resistant to alkalis and acids, which is particularly important in the chemical industry. It can be shaped in countless ways and offers great flexibility—characteristics he needs to create his art. So that big ideas can take flight. In a small workshop in Ludwigshafen.
The Friesenheimer Weihnachtstreff Christmas market takes place on the first and second Sundays of Advent at Otto-Buckel-Platz in Ludwigshafen.
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