Ep 86: Fly Fishing and Glass Blowing, with Martin Gerdin
Martin Gerdin is a professional glassblower and passionate fly fisherman. He has combined his love of each by crafting one-of-a-kind glass trout pieces. Martin is inspired by the beautiful trout he catches and photographs himself, and he especially values native species in their historic range. In this episode, we talk about how he came to fly fishing through his journey of healing from addiction, how he began specializing in glass trout, and what goes into the glassblowing process.
Also, please consider using the promo code he has made for Fish Untamed listeners! You can get 10% off any piece from his store by using code FISHUNTAMED10
Instagram: @martin_gerdin_glass
Website: martingerdinglass.com
Email: martin@martingerdinglass.com
Promo code: FISHUNTAMED10 for 10% off
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing in the backcountry. This is episode 86 with Martin Gerdin on fly fishing and glassblowing. well I just love to start by getting a background on my guests and usually it's fishing specific so I'd love to get a background on how you got into fly fishing and then I think after that we'll kind to move more into the glass blowing. So just go ahead and give me your spiel about how you got into the outdoors and fly fishing.
Martin
All right. So I've always been into fish and fishing. It's, my mom is from Minnesota and, you know, so we grew up, you know, fishing for warm water species and all that. But I never, fly fishing never interested me because I wondered like, why would you fish in more difficult way to catch small fish. Like that's what I thought it was all about. Um, and, it wasn't until, you know, I had, I had gotten sober and I was like, you know, brand new, like two months sober, trying to figure out what hobbies to do. Cause like, I didn't understand how to be a person basically. Um, and there was this, this other, this sober guy and he was like, let me take you fly fishing, man. And I was like, all right, like I'm down for whatever. Um, and, and he took me up the frying pan and we got this like 25 inch rainbow and I had never seen anything like it. And I've been hooked ever since. Um, you know, I just, the, the whole, it was almost mystical, you know, the, it was February and the wind ripping off the, off a Hunter Creek and the snow drifts. And we're just kneeling in the river, like, you know, handling this fish. And ever since then, it's been, you know, it's, it's enthralled me, you know, the ecosystem and learning about all the entomology and, you know, the different rods and how to use them. And yeah, we've just been hooked ever since that moment.
Katie
I love how you as the guy who was worried that fly fishing was just like the hard way to catch small fish goes out and has possibly the most extreme first day of fly fishing that anyone's ever had. Yeah. Frying pan in February with a 25 inch fish is, is, no small feat for anybody, let alone someone going out for their first time.
Martin
Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, this guy, Justin, who taught me, he was a pretty extreme guy. Um, you know, I thought that was the normal way to fly fish and that's still kind of how I do it. You know, it's like, I, I understand that, you know, I could go down and like nymph the crystal and do all that stuff, but I like going out at, you know, 1230 at night under the full moon and mousing for browns that kind of thing the more extreme the more entertaining to me
Katie
is it the the process that enthralls you or the chance of catching a monster
Martin
is it kind of everything about it I mean big fish are cool but for me it's not really even about the fish. Um, I just like being out there in, in such a, almost primal environment. Um, you know, that's why I tend to avoid the most traffic spots these days. Um, like for me, what really excites me now is like finding the native fish, which is pretty hard in Colorado. Um, like I do a lot of solo backpacking and, you know, it's almost as much about the place and my connection with the place as it is like the fish itself. Um, you know, the, the, the fly fishing is almost an excuse to go be part of the greater ecosystem.
Katie
I could not agree more. I feel like, I've transitioned. I mean, I've, I've always been more of a numbers person than a size person, but numbers have even faded away more into the experience, the whole experience of the trip. And that often involves a lot of like six inch brook trout or, you know, 10 inch cutthroats or something like that. But it's about that whole package. And it often doesn't include a lot of big fish if what you're going for is that whole package, because there's often not a lot of big fish in those places if you're really truly getting out there in these small creeks.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. We, it was a couple weeks ago, we, we drove the truck like 40 miles into the back country and then hiked another 10 miles and only caught one fish, but it was a really special fish in a really special place. And I feel like that's, that's what it's about. Like stocked, stocked fish, non-native fish. They just don't really interest me that much anymore. You know, it's, it's like the hunt and that's why, you know, places like Montana and Wyoming and, you know, Canada and Alaska, like have such a draw on me. You know, I feel like the further away you get from the city centers and the highways and the civilization, the more pristine and the more real the experience gets, the further you get away from the world.
Katie
For sure. I feel like I find myself thinking about how this place is as it has been for thousands or millions of years and only a handful of people in the grand scheme of things have ever gotten to experience that or witness that. I don't know if that's ever on your mind when you're out there compared to somewhere like you pull off a highway and go fish and it's fun, but it doesn't feel like you're truly in a place that few people have ever gotten to experience in its raw form.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely feel like I was born in the wrong century. All this technology and all this stuff, I often find myself daydreaming about what it would have been like to explore the American West 200 years ago, to be one of those pioneers on a wagon train going through Yellowstone Park with the huge schools of Yellowstone cutthroats and the wolves and the bears and yeah.
Katie
I know that even the places that are, for example, wilderness areas, they're not developed the way the urban areas are, but they're still affected by the fact that people are developing around there. But it is special to be, especially in a place like in Colorado or the West in general, where there are still these pockets that let you feel like you're back in that time period. Even if it's not unaffected by people, at least you feel like you are. It's as close as you can get in the lower 48 to really experiencing what it was like back then.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. And for me, that place is Alpine Lakes, hands down. Which is kind of funny, though, because a lot of those didn't have fish until people put them there. But I mean, in the species conversation, that's one of the only places that you can find like the Colorado River Basin cutthroats and the greenbacks. And, you know, because they're there, they vanished from the rivers. And, you know, I, I caught in the past three years, I've caught two cutthroats in, in the rivers around here. And all the rest of the cutthroats have been in Alpine Lakes. Yeah.
Katie
So what, what draws you to Alpine lakes? Is it, is it just that feeling of, you know, wildness or, do you like lake fishing as opposed to stream fishing? Like what draws you to them?
Martin
No, I think I prefer moving water, but I think it's the wildness and in particular the species. Like when I was in, my dad and I took a road trip from Colorado to Washington last summer, and we caught a lot of rainbows in Oregon and in Washington. And I found that a rainbow there felt very different from a rainbow here. I appreciated those rainbow trout more because there's an ancestry to that particular genetic line in that stream that goes back to before the rivers were, before the ecosystems were changed so much by people. And that's like, I love whitefish. I love whitefish too. A lot of people hate the whitefish and they're, you know, like we go out and we're like, oh yeah, we got like 30 fish from the boat. but we don't tell them that 28 of them were whitefish because people look down on that. But to me, whitefish are really special because they're the last holdout in Colorado of like the native fish in the native range.
Katie
That are still where they're supposed to be, not having been planted back in by CPW.
Martin
Yeah, exactly.
Katie
Yeah. Whitefish is often what brings me to the Roaring Fork Valley. We incidentally catch trout along the way, but we've had more than one time where we're like, hey, do you want to go catch whitefish this weekend? and that's where we head.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. Whitefish are awesome. They're like zucchinis with fins.
Katie
And they fight so hard.
Martin
Yeah. I mean, they're basically like, people like love grayling and idolize grayling, but whitefish are just grayling without the fancy fin, you know?
Katie
Yeah. Yeah. They look pretty similar. I feel like the grayling have the beautiful aesthetics, but I'm like the whitefish get bigger and they fight harder. And they look kind of like grayling, just a little bit, a little bit duller. Yeah. Yeah. Whitefish are a ton of fun. So I know you mentioned that what got you into fly fishing was the addiction. And I know we aren't going to dive too deep into that because you've talked about it at length before. But just for a bit of a background on this, because it seems relevant to both your fly fishing and I assume your glassblowing as well. I'll let you kind of lead the way there and kind of give whatever backstory you think is relevant for people on that.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah, I could talk the whole hour and a half about this if you if you let me. But, you know, I'll kind of give you the short and sweet of it. So, you know, addiction is an extreme issue in our society these days. Like the leading cause of death for people my age is opiate overdose. And it's kind of pushed under the rug in a lot of different circles and conversations because it's pretty gnarly. people don't like to think about, you know, in your neighborhood, there are people suffering and dying slowly. And for me, that's exactly what it was like it, you know, it devolved, like it was this slow motion train wreck over 10 years that devolved into, you know, me drinking a gallon of whiskey a day, not leaving my house except to go to the liquor store. And, you know, it all culminated in this incredibly severe injury that I could have easily died from. But that was like the moment that, you know, made me realize that I was going to die if I didn't get help. And I didn't know where to go or what to do or, you know, but I fell into a crowd of people in Carbondale, you know, sober young guys. and they just love to fly fish. And, you know, it was like right before the world shut down is when I got sober. And so that's all we had to do. Like none of us had jobs because we just got out of rehab. Um, and they gave me a fly rod and said, let's go. And so we fished, you know, 10 hours a day, every day for 10 months. Wow. And in that, in that time period, I went from a complete novice to what a lot of people would consider pretty adept at it and I mean it it's not what saved my life but it definitely was a big part of it and as far as the glass blowing how that relates to that because I i had been like I didn't really even know what a trout was supposed to look like because I i had been spin fishing and like you know catching stock rainbows my entire life so I thought all trout were like 12 inch cookie cutter you know silver pond rainbow trout you know from a hatchery and you know and I had been making them out of glass like what I thought trout were supposed to look like and it was these guys these silver guys he taught me how to fish they were like you know you make glass fish and you don't fly fish like you're doing this backwards like most people that make like trout art are fly fishermen first and then the art comes from the love of the love of the sport not the other way around and so that you know when I started really catching like real trout wild trout you know it really made me go go back to the drawing board and say, okay, my pieces don't really look like trout. How do I change that? And, and that's, you know, it's really been, a grind, you know, I've constantly trying to make changes and improvements. And like, I, I would say I've, I've probably tried a thousand different things in the last three or four years to improve my pieces and only 30 of them have worked. So it's an incredible amount of dedication and trial and error to sort of get to where I am now when you look at my modern work.
Katie
Now, why were you making rainbow trout before you fly fished? Were you making other things too and you just happened to also make fish or did you kind of have a passion for catching stocked rainbows on a spin rod and you were, that's what you knew, so that's why you were making them. Like how did that start?
Martin
Yeah, so I mean the stocked rainbows on the spin rod I wouldn't say it was a passion like towards the end honestly it was an excuse to drink you know and but I had always you know I had always had a passion for fishing like my favorite place to fish you know in the in in the dark times I'll call them was the Colorado River down by down by Junction because there's huge common carp in there like huge And, you know, catching these 30, 40 inch carp on a spin rod out of this muddy water was, it was really exciting. And so, and I, in those days I was a, what we call a production worker in the glass world. So I made like cups, bowls, vases, oil and vinegar, that sort of thing. But I had always, you know, made the fish as sort of like a passion project. I made my first fish when I was 15, and it was kind of like a generic tropical fish. But it was so cool to, like, make a fish out of glass, you know. I had no concept that that would, like, become my thing, you know. But I just thought it was really, really cool to, like, be able to make these sort of, like, hokey little cartoon creatures, you know, in addition to the more Italian-influenced vessels and bulls and stuff.
Katie
so how did you start glassblowing because I saw that you started when you were 13 which seems really young but it you know it means you've had a lot of years of experience but how did you pick that up as a as an activity?
Martin
yeah so it it has a lot to do with my mental health because I was always you know now that I've been diagnosed I'm have bipolar one and ADHD, which is like a wicked combo, because it's basically like endless, you know, energy all the time that prevents me from sleeping. Um, and, and so I, I always had terrible, terrible grades and skipped classes and all this stuff. And I was like a freshman in high school, just like, you know, first couple of weeks of high school. And I was actually skipping a class and I was looking for a place to hide. And I heard this like classical music coming out of the shack. And, you know, I poked my head in and it was this older guy and he was just sitting there like making these clear flowers out of glass. And he would like take it out of the furnace and just shape it with tweezers. And 20 to 30 seconds later, it was a flower. He would put it in the oven and start another one. And my mind was blown. I had like never seen con glass. I didn't even know what it was at that point. And I was like, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like in all I wanted to do at that point is like, learn about the process. Um, and so I started hanging around this guy's shop and, you know, he taught me some things and then he took me on as an apprentice and the rest is history pretty much.
Katie
Wow. So you just stumbled across this and I assume like I mean I don't have bipolar so I'm just kind of speculating but maybe it maybe it's the ADHD but I've heard of kids who can't focus well in school but they do really really well when they can focus on something they want to focus on was it something like that for you where it's not that you can't focus it's that school is you know boring and telling kids to sit in a chair and listen to an English presentation is not like it's not working with them yeah it was that kind of what you were experiencing where when you finally found something that you were interested in that that's what stole your focus and you were able to to really dive in deep on that
Martin
yeah and and it was really grounding is another big part of it so you know I felt like my thoughts in the world was just racing past me all the time but glassblowing is such an intense experience I mean there's smoke and fire and heat and the glass is so hot that it puts off its own light and it's such an intense experience that it grounded me in the moment and it was the first thing that I had found in my whole life that was able to do that that was able to you know sort of anchor me to reality and you know as I continued to you know pursue the glassblowing my grades improved. I started making friends. Um, and you know, it was because I had that outlet. Um, you know, it, it made functioning in every other aspect of my life much easier.
Katie
Now, have you found the same thing in fly fishing? Cause I've heard similar things, from people who fly fish where, you know, you need to get a good drift. You need to make a good cast. You need to focus on your fly or you're going to miss the take. And it kind of your attention to be on what you're doing. Um, and it takes their mind off of, you know, whatever stress they've got going on at home or whatever. Do you find a similar thing in fly fishing or is that, does that kind of occupy a different part of your life?
Martin
No, I feel like they're extremely similar, in more ways than most people realize. Um, you know, even down to the equipment, you know, like when you're blowing glass, you know, I have a blow pipe in my hands with a fish on the end and I'm connected to that fish, you know, through the tools, until either the fish smashes on the floor or it goes in the oven. The parallels, I could make more and more metaphors, but another way it's really similar is we can't actually touch the glass with our skin. Unlike clay, unlike iron, it's one of the only mediums of art where you can't physically touch what you're working on. Like painting, all of the other mediums, you can touch it. Um, but, and fly fishing is the same way. It's like, you can't, you can't handle the fish until the process is done. Yeah. You know, it's all, it's all by feel and, and using these devices and equipment to interact with something that you're disconnected from.
Katie
Huh. I would have never thought of that, but it's so true. I mean, you could think of the glass falling out, you know, when it falls off and breaks, like that's the fish breaking your line or, or getting off. Like you, you don't get to get to the end unless you like finish the process. And then it culminates in the final, you know, I'm holding this fish, I'm holding the glass fish, but you know, half the time you don't get to that part. You get to do half the journey and then it all falls apart. You got to start over from scratch.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like the, there's, there's metaphors for the drift as well because, you know, whenever I make a piece, it's an incredible amount of prep work. And if I don't get that right, the piece doesn't come out right, especially for like developing new species. You know, I have to I have to nail every aspect of it leading up to the big day or it just it doesn't it doesn't happen.
Katie
So tell me more about the process, because this might be a good time. I know you had some things listed that you want to talk about. Part of it is what goes into it. So in case people haven't figured it out by now, you make glass fish. Yes. Glass trout. Trout, for the most part, it looks like from your website, but a variety of species as well. So I know the first thing you had listed was kind of the chemistry and the physics of glass ploy, which I think would be a good place to start so people can kind of get an idea for what you're doing, what goes into the process of making one of these finished pieces. because it's easy as an outsider to look at it and say, there's a glass fish. But I'm sure there's so much more behind the scenes that, you know, people aren't even thinking about when they look at that, like all the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into it. So I'd love to hear, just like, give me the basics on glassblowing, and then maybe we can move into applying those things to how you craft a piece.
Martin
Okay, so Glassblowing 101, I guess.
Katie
We're all going to be experts by the end.
Martin
Yeah, so it all starts with the chemistry. Which, and I wish I knew more about chemistry. I just know what I have to know for things to work. But, so, the base of the material is silica, which most people probably know silica makes up most glassy substances. But the melting point of silica is about 4,200 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough that it would melt our equipment if we tried to heat things up that much. So the glass that we use is specifically formulated for, you know, the hot work, the hot sculpting. And it's a mixture of silica, sodium, which is a flux. It helps, you know, it's a binding agent basically. And then limestone brings down the temperature. But because of that, it's a very specific formula that needs to be compatible with everything else that we use. So every material has what we call a coefficient of expansion. Every material that exists has it. When things heat up, they expand. When they cool down, they contract. And when you're working with glass specifically, everything you use needs to have the same coefficient of expansion. Otherwise, when the molecules shrink as it cools, everything will explode, which it sounds violent and it can be sometimes. Um, so we, we start with, we call it batch. It's basically like mineral flour. Um, it, it comes in a white dust and it's, it's made by a company we buy it from and it has all the right, you know, ratios of the ingredients. We take that batch and we throw it in our big furnace, which is about the size of a Suburban. And it has a big pot in there called a crucible. So we take our batch, we put it in the crucible, it cooks at 2300 degrees. And after 24 hours of cooking, it's glass. And it's clear. Right. So that's where the majority of our raw material comes from is clear. Even though my pieces look very colorful, 99% of the glass in every piece is clear. We just use optical illusions to make it appear so colorful. And that is because the colors come from metal oxides that are dissolved into the glass. So like the pink that I use to make, you know, the inside of the mouth pink, it comes from gold oxide. And so you can imagine it's incredibly expensive. Like the pink glass is about $200 a kilogram and the clear glass is $2 a kilogram. Oh, wow. Um, so the more, the more experience you have, the more you can use those optical illusions to, make it more affordable to work. Um, and, yeah, so I have all of these different, different glasses. A lot of them are powders. I use a lot of powdered glass that have a high metal content dissolved in them already. But I have to make sure that everything is the same coefficient of expansion. Otherwise, it's not compatible. Let me know if I'm losing you here.
Katie
No, no, this is great. This is exactly what I want to hear.
Martin
Yeah. And so that's, you know, the raw material end. And do you want me to go into the process of how we start turning that into pieces?
Katie
Yeah. Yeah. I'd love to hear it.
Martin
Yeah. So I start with the fins. Everything starts with the fins. Well, not really. If it's a species that I've made a lot of, like the brown trout is my signature. I know exactly what colors and how much of each color I'm going to use going in. But so I just made the first tiger trout, for example, and that took me about a month and a half of color testing. And so I probably made 30 or 40 fins for this piece, just testing colors. You know, and so I'll take some clear glass, take it out of the furnace. It's kind of like the consistency of like honey when it comes out of the furnace. It's pretty gooey, but it cools in a unique way. So glass is like never really truly a liquid or truly a solid. Like most materials have a flashpoint, like metals, water is a good example. So like ice is frozen. It's a solid until 32 degrees, and then it's a liquid. There's nothing in between. Whereas glass has a range of viscosity. So as it heats up, it goes from, you know, basically a solid and it gets less and less viscous until you get to about 2,500 degrees. And it's like honey. It's pretty runny. So I take a ball, you know, a blob of glass out of the furnace on the end of a metal rod. And I apply the powders with a sifter. So I kind of sift it on there, melt it in, cool it down. I usually smash it out, you know, so I can, you know, so a lot of light goes through it. Because that informs what the color looks like too. Because it's not just like, oh, this is yellow. It's how dense is the yellow. Because all glass, like light's going to come through it. So if you have a really dense color, it might be yellow, but it's going to look black if no light can come through.
Katie
Got it.
Martin
um and so you know I do a ton of color testing for each new species
Katie
when you say the fins do you make the fins separately from the fish or are you using the fins as a way to test the color that then you apply to the whole fish later like do you are you attaching the fins
Martin
I do both um yeah and I used to do it only in one shot where I would take like a blob of of clear glass colored in color or covered in color and just stick it right on the body of the fish and like sculpted in the moment, but my quality control was like not there, you know, because if I screwed it up, then it's like, whoops, you know, this, fish has a, free willy looking dorsal fin, you know? But so I do make all the fins beforehand these days. Um, and it's really nice because if I, if I do screw them up, I just won't use it, you know? So I, yeah, I start with the fins and, and I'll I'll make them and I use I use a lot of really kind of strange tools a lot of them are are made specifically for glass blowing and sculpting glass but a lot of them are not like one of my favorite tools is is a cocktail muddler I got from amazon you know like those like little baseball bat looking things and I love I love it it's like a really good shape for going in and sculpting like you know the inside underneath the underneath what would be the forehead but so I have you know all these strange strange hand tools and the fins I'll like make a ball and then smash it out with a pair of crimps put the texture in and what I've been doing in the last probably year and a half is after that I'll I will I'll take a pair of shears and I will cut the shape of the fin out of you know the flattened disc with texture and I use like a ton of reference material like whenever I'm working there's like pictures of trout all over the floor and like tape to the walls and stuff. Um, just because in the moment it's really easy to get hyper-focused on what I want or what I think it should look like versus what it actually should look like. Um, you know, and for a while I was making the, the pelvic fins on brown trout, like really pointy. Um, and then suddenly I realized one day I was like, wait, they aren't pointy at all. I all the way around and I was like oh I haven't been looking at my photos so I cut the fin shape out and then I break them all off off of the rod and that's another really cool property of glass is like the molecules of glass are amorphous by nature so like iron for example all the molecules like to line up really really orderly like in a hexagonal pattern and that's why it's such a strong material that's why I can bend all that sort of stuff but glass like has these weird like amorphous molecules that don't fit together and that's why it breaks in the first place like that's why glass shatters and other materials don't shatter and so you can use that to your advantage so like after I make the fin I i put a constriction where I want it to come off and then all it takes is a little vibration which I use like a little a little billy club and I just tap the rod and I've cooled that constriction and just pops right off it's a really cool property of glass and if you've ever ever been to a glass blowing studio and seen a blower break something off of the rod it will blow your mind the first time you see it because it looks so insignificant just that little tap but you know it's the stress and the molecules that that make it work
Katie
so I have a stupid question, I actually have two probably stupid questions for you no fire away the first one the first one is how is the glass attached to the rod like you have a rod there's glass on the end and at some point you're going to break it off. But what is the attachment point like? What is holding that glass onto the rod?
Martin
Like what makes the glass stick to the rod?
Katie
I guess so. I'm picturing a rod in your hand and I know that there's glass on the end, but I'm having trouble visualizing what is going on right at that junction. What's on the end of the rod and how is that glass on there? So if you've got a rod with a fin on the end, what does that junction look like?
Martin
So the junction we call the moil, M-O-I-L. And it is, it's basically a cocoon of glass around the steel itself.
Katie
Okay, okay.
Martin
And that glass, specifically, we don't put into the piece. So anything that's on the metal, when it comes off the metal, it will probably have metal in it. It'll probably take some steel with it as it comes off. And because, you know, of the coefficient of expansions, if you have chips of steel in your piece when you're trying to anneal it, everything will crack. So the moil we leave on the rod when we break off. So that's why we use those constrictions, strategic constrictions, you know, far enough away from the steel to not pick up any steel. So if you look at the videos on my Instagram, for example, you'll see that I have the piece and then I have almost what looks like a bridge from the metal to the piece with a constriction in it. And that's the point. I'll put water on and tap it and the whole thing will come off clean.
Katie
Okay. That makes sense. My second question is when I think of, when I think most people, when they think of glass blowing, I think a lot of people probably picture the, you know, vases and things like that. You know, you've got, you're blowing, it's blowing up almost like a balloon and that forms some sort of, you know, bowl-like shape. Where does the blowing come in, in something like a trout? Is the trout hollow? Have you blown it into that shape or is blowing the term for glass making in general? It's not all actually blowing.
Martin
No, blowing, blowing. Yeah, it refers to the blowing of it. So, you know, I start on a blow pipe. And, you know, if I were to make like a, I don't know, a 26 inch trout, that's solid, out of solid glass, it would be incredibly heavy. You know, and still, they're even hollow, they're still like 10 or 12 pounds but so I start on the blowpipe and I guess I can I can delve into how I make the bodies it's a nice junction so everything is built in layers so the amount of glass that you can take out of the furnace the amount of clear is determined by the surface area of what you're we call it gathering it's determined by the surface area of what you're gathering on. So when I start, I take a little gather of clear. And when I say little, I mean like a chicken egg. And, you know, I put a little bubble in it, you know, maybe like a ping pong ball size bubble. And then I put the pink, right? So I put a nice solid coat of pink on that. I let it cool down. And then I go back into the furnace and take another layer of clear. you know, now we're probably the size of an avocado. And then I put a really strong opaque white on, which acts as a backdrop for the rest of the colors. And the reason we do it in layers like that is as, you know, I inflate the bubble, everything, like the core fills in. So when you look through it, what you're really looking at is like the first layer, you know, kind of like a jawbreaker. And, you know, so I put the white on, then I take another layer of clear. And at this point, we're like, you know, the size of a Nerf ball, a Nerf football. And then, you know, depending on the species, I'll start putting on different colors, like for a brown trout, I'll put on, It's kind of like this smoky, smoky honey, like a rusty yellow. It's hard to describe, but it's become my favorite color in glass. It's a little bit unpredictable, and I like that because sometimes it comes out really dark and moody. Sometimes it's nice and bright. But I find that reflected in the brown trout that I find in the fork. Some of them are so dark, they're almost like olive colored. And some of them in the middle of the summer, they're so bright, they look like a yellow piece of construction paper.
Katie
I've seen some that are almost black at times.
Martin
Yeah, especially if you can get the pre-spawn females on their way up. I've been meaning to make one of those, really, really dark. and their fins their fins are like olive green with with black leading edges but I've I've been meaning to make one but it it's like the catch 22 of a of a successful artist it's like I have all these things I want to make but then there's all these things I have to make like pieces that are yeah exactly yeah so my creative outlet kind of gets you know pushed off a few weeks everyone you know it's like like the tiger trout I've been looking forward that piece for like three months, but just never, never could because orders kept coming in and, you know, got to, got to make what I got to make. Um, but, where was I?
Katie
Just to clarify before you go on. So is this, this is like the form it's in now is kind of like a layered ball, but there is a, there's a hollow like bubble inside that you've started.
Martin
Yes. Yes. There's a bubble. Um, and as I go, I do, you know, slowly inflate the bubble a little bit. Um, and, yeah. And, and, and after, after the white base is on, it's kind of like at my discretion, how many layers it needs after that, both for like to build up the mass, but also, I, I like to separate all of my colors with layers of clear, because they, like I could put all the colors on one layer and then put a bunch of clear and then puff it up, you know, inflate it to size, but chances are it would not look the way that I wanted it to look because, you know, all of these colors are metal oxides and they interact with each other in really unpredictable ways. Like there's a lot of chemistry on the molecular scale that happens when you put like gold oxide and silver oxide and chromium oxide and cadmium and all of these different metal oxides together at these temperatures. Like they, they change their crystalline structure so that what might have been red and brown turned purple, which I had an issue with cutthroats turning purple for a while. Um, because, because the, the, the red kept meeting the brown and wherever that would happen. So, you know, they would have like the brown back and the red belly, and then there would be a big purple stripe down the side where the colors met. and so I i keep taking layers of clear you know basically one for every different color I put on and most of my pieces have I would say like three to four different transparent colors that I i sort of layer and blend into each other like I'll use brown trout as an example again. So, I put on that, that what I call the brilliant gold color. Um, and then I take another layer and then I put a olive green, like a dense olive green right down the top of the back. And then I take another layer and then I put an olive brown, sort of on the, you know, near the top, but not on the back. So it kind of fades green, brown into gold down around the sides. And then I take the final layer. And at this point, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty large, like a bowling ball.
Katie
Because it's got so many layers stacked on top. Not because you've blown it to a big size.
Martin
Yeah. And I, yeah. And I do inflate the bubble a little bit. It's probably like a bowling ball with like a peach size bubble in the middle. And, and, and then, you know, that's when I start sort of thinking about how much glass I actually need for whatever I'm making. So I'll typically cut off like a third of what I have, you know, because I just get so much mass as a byproduct, not one of the colors to interact. You know, so I'll determine how much glass I need. I'll cut off the excess, which I normally like just toss into the oven and then I ship them out with the pieces. so you get you get your fish and then you get like a like a marble the size of a grapefruit with the same coloration that's kind of cool yeah people think they're kind of cool and I don't know I sometimes it feels kind of silly to to put them in there but I've gotten good feedback about it
Katie
I think I think there would be a market just for trout pattern giant marbles like Like I honestly think people would pay for that.
Martin
Yeah. But they don't really look the same because it's not until I inflate the bubble on the inside that all the layers sort of marry.
Katie
Oh, okay.
Martin
So when it's that thick, and we're talking like in the finished piece, the walls of the bubble are only about an inch thick at the max. But when it's like still four inches thick, you can really clearly see the different layers, where the different colors are. And when you kind of look at the side, you get a lensing effect where you can see like the individual layers that aren't stacked on top of each other. It isn't until I put, you know, the constriction in to where I'm going to break it off. And then I really start to puff it up and elongate it. And that's when, you know, everything kind of coalesces and it starts to look like the pattern that I'm going for.
Katie
So how do you blow it in a way that makes it long instead of just a giant round bubble? Do you just kind of like manipulate the shape as you're blowing it to elongate it?
Martin
Yeah. So we have a number of invisible tools and gravity is probably the most useful one. You know, the more, the more mass, like the bigger, the piece you're making, the more gravity affects it, but really getting it hot and just hanging it down at an angle really dramatically can change the shape.
Katie
It makes sense.
Martin
Yeah. And you know, the, the old Italian glass masters say that the less you touch it, the more beautiful it looks. And, you know, I touched the glass a lot, but I do adhere to that principle in, in, in some aspects, like making it longer. Um, you know, I, I use gravity and then, you know, once I'm like, I'm kind of like looking for a silhouette, when I'm, you know, still kind of football shaped. Um, I, I kind of want to get in my length ballpark and then, I squish it with a pair of cork paddles. Um, you know, I, I, we basically get a hot and then I just kind of smush it flat. And, you know, certain species like salmon and brook trout and stuff like that have a dorsal ridge that goes down. Like I'll do that at that point. And then I do like the final stretch with a pair of shears. And that that squares off the end of the bubble, which is really useful moving forward. To attach the tail? Yeah. Yeah, because if you look at a trout, the tail, you know, it's not like a rounded end with the tail stuck on. It's kind of a little bit squared off, and then the tail kind of comes around the top and the bottom a little bit. And so doing the final stretch with the shears and then cutting it, not like completely square, but a little bit square helps me with that form a lot.
Katie
Now, how do you create the mouth? And then separately, how do you create the patterns, you know, like, for example, eyes or things like that, like the final touches?
Martin
So the eyes, the eyes like the fins I make beforehand. And this is something that I've changed in the last, I think it was in March that I had a breakthrough on the eyes. And how I do them now is I basically build them backwards, but I put all of the same parts as a real eye has, which is kind of cool. So, you know, eyes have a lens, you know, a transparent, you know, kind of rounded disc. And so I'll make that out of glass. You know, I'll take a little bit of clear out of the furnace and I'll cut a constriction into it. And then I have my assistant who is actually my girlfriend. She helps me with the eyes. But as I'm cutting the constriction, she flattens it. So we end up with kind of like a rounded disc. And then once we have that, I decorate the backside. So I then take sticks of colored glass, like pure color. You know, I start with a little bit of black. And I'm using a torch for this. You know, I'll get the end of the stick of black molten, you know, put a little black dot right in the middle. And then I usually, I've like gravitated towards a few specific colors that I rotate between. But my favorite one recently is like this, it's kind of like an orangey brown, like really transparent, really nice color. And I build up a ball of that on the end of the stick, just heating it in glass, you know, is subject to surface tension. So the more I heat it, the rounder it's going to get. So I just keep heating it and it kind of balls up on the end of the stick. And then I put that on the backside of the lens, you know, over the black dot, which is the pupil. And then I kind of, you know, smear that out to the edge of the lens. And then the part that was really the breakthrough is I take pure silver foil. It's pretty thick. It's like thicker than leaf. It's like aluminum foil, but made of pure silver. And I tear off a piece and I stick that onto the, onto what, you know, the colored glass, which, you know, is basically the iris color. And then the interaction between the metal that makes the color and the pure silver leaf is what gives it that depth and those variations that you see. And it's pretty wild because that pattern in the eyes, it makes itself, you know, based on the technique that I figured out, which is really, really cool in my opinion.
Katie
Is that the only part of the fish that is not made of glass? That silver piece?
Martin
Well, I mean, there's metal in the colors, if that's what you're asking.
Katie
No, I guess, like, are you inserting any other non-glass items? Not talking about the colors, but just, you know, putting any other objects in the trout, the way you're putting the foil in the trout?
Martin
No, the foil is the only one. And, yeah, and it is, it's thin enough that I can get away with it. I haven't ever had an issue with the different coefficients interacting in a weird way. But it's interesting that you ask, is that the only thing that's not made out of glass? Because that leads me to the question, like, what is glass? So it's silica base, but glassy substances have a ton of different ingredients.
Katie
Right. I guess you mentioned that at the beginning that you use this combination, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that is inherently what glass is. That's what you're using.
Martin
okay yeah and and you know it sounds like I'm I'm inserting like a foreign material into the piece with the silver but some of the colors I use are silver dissolved into the glass and yeah it's it's all yeah the the more the more I learn about the physics of glass the more I realize that I don't really understand what glass is it doesn't have a solid definition necessarily. like a glassy substance like any any substance that vitrifies can be considered a glass so like obsidian is has the same ingredients as basalt you know they're both volcanic rocks one has vitrified and one has not one has become glassy and one has not and yeah I know that's off topic, but I don't consider inserting like metal into the piece to be a foreign object as such. Like my, my mentor, my current mentor, my original mentor retired, but my current mentor makes these really intricate plant forms out of, out of solid copper. And we inlay them into the surface of these big vessels. And yeah, I mean, it works because it just so happens that copper has the same coefficient, but metals can vitrify as well. Like metals can become glassy substances.
Katie
And do you have an example of that that people might be familiar with?
Martin
Yes. What is it called? Bismuth.
Katie
And what form does that take? Like what glassy substance?
Martin
It vitrifies into crystals.
Katie
Okay. Okay.
Martin
So glassy crystals. And so like anything that's considered a glass is a mineral or a metal that has vitrified, meaning its molecular structure has formed a glassy substance.
Katie
So that's what causes something to be glassy is the way that it's molecularly structured.
Martin
Yes.
Katie
Okay. And what, I think we all, like I can picture what you mean when you say glassy. Is there a kind of a definition of like what that is? Because I can picture it, but the way I would describe it is it's smooth. It seems a little bit transparent, but not necessarily, or maybe translucent is the right word for that. But I couldn't really put my finger on it beyond that. Is there a formal definition for what constitutes something being glassy or is it just you know it when you see it and we all know what we're talking about?
Martin
Yeah, I mean it's some of it is you know it when you see it. But I would say brittle, crystalline, and unpredictable. Like one of the hallmarks of a glassy substance is they do not handle transmission of heat very well. and there are some glasses that do like pyrex well actually pyrex is like the only one that does and that's why pyrex borosilica is so widely used it's because it's the only glassy substance that that you can like hold on a bunsen burner that won't explode that you can like cook brownies in
Katie
oh okay you know that won't blow up and that's why you can't put other glass containers in the oven
Martin
exactly and that's why pyrex has boron in it and that's a property of boron is heat distribution. But yeah, like if I were to make a cup out of our glass or like a coffee cup and you were to pour coffee in it, it would probably explode.
Katie
And so when I'm thinking of like a coffee cup, I'm thinking of, I don't know if it's actually porcelain, but like a porcelain type material, is that considered like a glass?
Martin
Porcelain is considered a ceramic and a ceramic is and technically glass like the glass that we make is a ceramic as well because a ceramic is a a mineral-based substance that is fired to become more durable and so most glasses are ceramics but not all ceramics are glasses
Katie
okay okay yeah that makes sense because I guess I when I'm thinking of like the coffee mug it was you know I'm thinking of something that's almost like clay-like and then was fired to become what it is now. But it does have that kind of glassy texture, that shininess, the brittleness.
Martin
And that's the glaze, which is a true glass.
Katie
Oh, okay.
Martin
Which is kind of funny. The ceramics glazes, it's a lot of the same chemistry that we use. Like a lot of the same metal oxides go into ceramic glazes.
Katie
That makes a lot of sense because actually I have, I feel like I've done ceramic stuff and I forgot that the glazing part of it.
Martin
Yeah. And that's why they call it a glaze because it's glass.
Katie
Oh, I didn't realize that's where that came from. Yeah. So back to the trout. How long does one of these pieces take from start to finish? Like assuming you already know the design, like I'm not talking about the coming up with the colors and playing around with it, but let's say like a brown trout, what you've kind of described as your signature piece. How long does it take you to just create one from start to finish knowing the process the whole way through?
Martin
In hours or weeks?
Katie
Let's do weeks if that's an option, I guess.
Martin
Okay. So weeks, it's about two. Okay. And that's because we need to wait for things to anneal. So when, because the molecules are amorphous, when I'm, you know, done making the fins or the whole piece, I put it in an oven that cools it, you know, 20 degrees an hour back down to room temperature from about a thousand. Um, and that get, I mean, it never works perfectly. I'm never going to get like the glass molecules to align like, steel molecules, for example. Um, but we can do a pretty darn good job of getting, getting them to be stable at least. Um, so, yeah, we anneal, we anneal them. And because I make parts beforehand, I need to anneal the fins and the eyes. So that takes a few days. And then I need to anneal the piece. That takes a few days. And then, but total man hours in those two weeks is probably like 40.
Katie
Okay. So that's why you got to give both as an option because it takes that long. It takes two weeks from start to finish, but you're not working only on that piece all day, every day. You're leaving it to do something else while you probably work on something else in the meantime
Martin
yeah by necessity so typically I'll have like two to three pieces going at a time where you know I'll like make the parts for one and then make the parts for another one and then we'll put one of them together and then while that anneals I'll like make a stand for another one and you know it's a little bit scattered but I've found that it's it's the best way to keep things moving forward especially since pieces don't always work out. Like sometimes they crack in the annealer. Sometimes they crack when I'm cutting them on the lathe, you know, because you asked like the glass that's on the metal, I need to remove the leftovers when everything is said and done. So I have actually at my home here, I have a home studio that has all of these diamond tools, like diamond cutting wheels and all that stuff. You know, so I'll cut away the material that should not be there and then polish the area that I've ground down. Yeah.
Katie
And I know you mentioned in when I sent you the document that you kind of use fishing as a way to like redesign these pieces. And you mentioned before we got on here that you've had some like breakthroughs in the past two years or so. You feel like you've really like your pieces have really gotten off the ground a little bit more. Like what are some examples of some of those kind of breakthroughs you've had? And like, how have you noticed the difference in your pieces between like what you used to make and where you're at now, which it sounds like you're much happier with where you're at now than you were just a couple of years ago?
Martin
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I would say the breakthroughs come in two forms, like technical breakthroughs where we figure out some property of the glass that we've been missing or some technique that makes things easier or faster or look better. And then the other kind of breakthrough is when I catch like a really special fish and I take the time to, you know, obviously keeping them like wet in the net in the current. But, you know, I'll take like 15 minutes and really study a fish, you know, and like I'll use the cutthroat as the example. Like if you look on my Instagram, the most recent cutthroat I posted looks completely different from the one, the previous one that I posted. And that's because, you know, I spent a lot of time in Wyoming and Montana this summer. And, and what was really astounding to me is how pristine the ecosystems are up there. Uh, like we fished the snake basin, snake river basin, and we were catching cutthroats all the time. Like every other fish was a cutthroat and, you know, being able to, to really study them and notice, like my biggest takeaway with the cutthroat was how angular they are. Um, you know, like the tip of the bottom, the top and bottom jaw are very pointed, like the dorsal ridge, you know, it comes to a pretty defined point on the back. All of the fins are really, really angular. Um, and so I, I would consider that like a, a breakthrough as far as design, because, you know, I, I hadn't come into contact, like I came into contact with more cutthroats this summer than I have my entire life before. And then being able to, you know, take those memories and the photos that I've taken, because it, the reference material is really different when I've taken the photo of the fish. Because I feel like you get an impression from like a photo of a fish somebody else caught. But it's different for me when I've like handled the fish and like experienced the forms and the colors myself. When I look at the photo, it's much easier for me to visualize that in three dimensions.
Katie
I don't even make things, I don't even make trout in any form, but I know what you mean in that I feel like I resonate more with photos I've taken of fish. I feel like I can, I see that fish in the picture in a different way than if I were to just Google, you know, brook trout or something. It looking at at the time and it there's like some sort of connection that's made between what I saw before and what I'm looking at now that that brings a more like holistic picture to that fish than if I were to just google like I mean I can tell you what a brook trout looks like but it's different than what I see when I see a picture of one that I saw in person as well and I'm not even making art out of out of these fish but I've noticed the same thing
Martin
yeah absolutely and I feel like trout and this might be just a bias because trout are like almost a spiritual experience to me but like trout have a presence to them that it's really hard to to understand if you haven't like handled a special a special fish like not all trout are created equal in my opinion you know like every every fly fisherman knows like when you catch that that really special fish and it doesn't even need to be a huge one. You know, like if you catch, you know, that brown trout that has a really interesting spot pattern and like a bright red adipose fin, or like you catch that rainbow that has, you know, like wicked teeth and red sides.
Katie
You're describing all the frying pan fish.
Martin
Well, I don't know. The crystal has those fish too.
Katie
It does. When I think of the bright, you know, The frying pan comes to mind when I think of fish who seem to have their saturation turned up a little bit.
Martin
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that, you know, a lot of that is from eating shrimp. You know, flamingos have their saturation turned up because of shrimp. But, yeah, I, I feel like, when I do manage to catch those really special fish, it, it helps me translate that presence into the piece. Um, like we caught a, we caught a 33 inch Brown. Um, and it was like, it was a rodeo. it was yeah I was on a seven weight the streamer fishing and he's he's like I was on 16 pound tippet and it snapped my rod oh my god because it went into the current and took off and snapped my rod clean in half because I was trying to put the brakes on him but we you know we we managed to land him on half a rod about a quarter mile downstream and in this in the calmer water under a bridge and and this was on the fork if you're wondering
Katie
I was wondering I wasn't gonna ask you exactly where it was but I was wondering like where what vicinity this was in
Martin
it was on the fork and it was the time of year where this fish was most likely returning back to the Colorado after spawn okay yeah it was it was post-spawn but that it was not a roaring fork fish like it was a Colorado river fish for sure and but like what I remember most about that about that fish and that experience is just the presence that this fish had and like everybody has been like scrolling through instagram and seeing those guys catching you know like the 40 inch browns on the white river but it's it's different when when that fish is like in your hands. You know, it's so different when a fish, like the size of your thigh is in the net.
Katie
I think it also, I think also where it comes from has been a big thing. Like I think those brown trout, like a lot of those brown trout that come out of the white, right? All those brown trout that come out of the white river, that's, it's known for that. So they feel like they belong there. And so when you catch one, I feel like it's not that it's not exciting, but it's, it's almost expected. Like that's why you're going there. But to catch a fish that feels like an anomaly for where it is, I think feels more special normally, even if it's not as big, you know, it's absolute size isn't as big as those White River fish, but to be caught off guard by that fish, you know, imagine catching a 20 inch brown out of a small creek, like that 20 inch brown isn't as big as yours, but to come out of a small creek like that would be so exciting that it feels like you said, that presence that, that you're just like so in awe of it, that it's, it kind of blows you away.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's what I really, like my biggest takeaway when I catch fish and then make fish is I'm really trying to like recreate that, that presence that every trout angler knows, like, you know, exactly what I'm talking about. When, when I say like a special fish has a presence when you net it, you know, and it's like, you know, a special experience from, you know, when you land them to when you release them, you know, you feel that presence. And that's what I'm trying to, you know, let people like take that home with them and like display it. So are you making, do you often make specific fish?
Katie
Like when you're making a brown trout, do you just make a brown trout or do you often make a specific brown trout that you caught and you have a picture of and you are trying to like replicate its pattern and things like that
Martin
typically I don't do that I've had many requests to do that but I really I don't make mounts like I make sculptures and yeah like I'm actually working on a project right now which is gonna come to a head next week I'm traveling to Arizona to a much bigger glass studio to make this piece and it's a it's a sea run brown trout inspired by the Tierra del Fuego, you know, those fish. And the customer, you know, sent me a lot of pictures of a specific fish. And like, I'm going to use that as a reference as far as color and like the blue cheek and the shape of the jaw. But I'm not trying to replicate that fish. I'm trying to capture the presence of a fish like that.
Katie
Got it. So it's an inspiration and a reference for for you know you're trying to create a fish that kind of mimics it in in terms of color and proportions and things like that but it's not it's not that fish it that that fish is an inspiration for the piece
Martin
yeah exactly yeah I'm not yeah I i and I i thought about the idea of like trying to be a a glass taxidermist and it just felt wrong you know
Katie
In what way?
Martin
Well, because I feel like making these pieces is such a raw experience for me. It's like what you see is coming out of my head. Oh, okay. I use references, sure, but I'm not super interested in trying to recreate a picture.
Katie
It's like the difference between a photograph and a painting of something that – you've got photos for that purpose of documenting exactly what that looked like, but the art is more of an abstract thing that it's a mixture of what you're creating and what your brain is coming up with as you go and where it takes you.
Martin
Yeah, and I'll use the original – I don't know if you can tell, but I love Wyoming and the Yellowstone area. But I'll use the original painters in Yellowstone. This is way back in the old days. But they would paint all the features of Yellowstone in one painting. you know they would paint the falls and the river and the lake and old old faithful and you know like the greater geyser basin and and like a bison they would put all of that into one big like wall piece but there's no spot in Yellowstone where you can stand and see all of that you know they're just trying to capture the presence and you know the almost like the the feeling that you get from that place. Um, like I feel like art, art is about creating an emotional response in the viewer at a certain level. Um, so I'm more interested in, in chasing that emotional response rather than chasing, you know, identical perfection to a photograph.
Katie
Do you have a favorite piece you've made or is it, is it like choosing your children?
Martin
Oh, they're all my favorites. It's like, I spend so long with each one and yeah I don't know I feel like every new one is always my favorite until I ship it off and then I feel all sad until I make the next one I get I get or my my favorite one is the one that's cooling down in the annealer
Katie
the one that didn't break and it's ready to go
Martin
yeah or or the one that I haven't seen yet you know because like I spend when we make them you know it takes it takes about two hours to like make the bubble put the colors sculpt the face put the fins on and then we put it in the annealer and so like I've I've spent those two hours with it but then I have to wait for five days to see what it looks like you know and the colors are never the same once it's cooled down so I always have like this grandiose idea of what's in the oven you know and sometimes I open it up and it is as grand as I thought and sometimes I put it on a shelf in my house and don't tell anybody about it so it's kind of like it's like looking at Christmas presents under the tree and wondering, you know, what's going to be. Exactly.
Katie
That's gotta be fun though. You know, the anticipation is kind of, you know, to bring this back to fly fishing. Um, I often have just as much fun planning the trip as I do. Like once I actually get started on the trip, like just the anticipation of knowing it's coming and getting everything ready and deciding which way to hike in and all that. Like, it's not as fun as catching a fish and getting it in your net, but it's, it's still a very fun part of the process. Just, just waiting for it to happen.
Martin
Yeah, I totally understand that. And like my truck is a good example of that. I've built this trout machine, this just beast of a Toyota that can literally take me anywhere. And I think I've spent as much time working on it as I have driving it to fishing spots. But, you know, it's the anticipation of lining up all your ducks in the road. So, you know, just to give yourself the best chance of having that incredible experience. Definitely.
Katie
I think that's a quality that a lot of people have I don't think everyone has it but I think there's a lot of people who who like the act of making something and making progress towards something and that that process in itself is a big part of of what they're going for even though it's not the destination
Martin
yeah yeah like product oriented versus process oriented
Katie
and I would argue that a lot well I there's probably a lot of anglers out there that really are product oriented they want that fish and they want a picture of the fish and that's all they care about but most of the people I fish with, I think are more process oriented. And at the end of the day, if they went out and had a good time with their friends on the river and maybe got a bite, that's what they were going for. And then if they get a fish, that's great. That's, you know, the cherry on top. Yeah. So just to wrap up, tell me where people can find you if they want to see you on Instagram, because you have a really awesome Instagram. But also people want to look at your gallery, if they want to buy something from you, where's the best place to find you and get ahold of you?
Martin
So my Instagram is, if you want to see like the flashy stuff, like I post the videos there and that kind of thing. It's martingerdinglass with underscores. So are they going to know how to spell my name?
Katie
It'll be in the show notes and the title. So I'll link to all this stuff too, but just if people are listening, they want to kind of get an idea for where to find you.
Martin
Okay. Yeah. So it's martingerdinglass on Instagram. And then my website is martingurdonglass.com. And there on the website, you can see I post every piece that goes out the door, I post in the gallery. So you can see the sort of variations between, you know, what the, like, what the variations are in a certain species. You know, if you want to buy one, you can do it there. Or you can get a hold of me directly via email. you know there's a contact me section on the website yeah and then for all of the listeners of fish untamed I made a discount code just use fishuntamed10 at checkout for 10% off any sculptures
Katie
that's awesome I really appreciate that code and I do want to ask you personally do you make a whitefish
Martin
I have not yet
Katie
how have you not made a whitefish being a fellow whitefish enthusiast?
Martin
well whitefish are actually really complicated like you know how many scales they have
Katie
yeah the trout are nice and smooth they look they look appropriate
Martin
exactly yeah and that's you know that was another breakthrough that I had in the last year is I figured out how to put scales on stuff you know and that I made a bonefish and a redfish and a grayling and whitefish are definitely next on the list. But, you know, that's like the catch-22 of the successful artists. I have the skills and the tools and the techniques to make a whitefish now, but I'm going to have to wait at least a few more weeks, you know, because I'm still working on pieces that people have commissioned.
Katie
It sounds like someone needs to request a whitefish from you in order to allow you to kind of play with that process.
Martin
Yeah, it'll still be a few weeks in that case, though, because, you know, people are, I have kind of a list going. You know, and I thought, like, when the list first formed about two years ago, I was like, wow, this is incredible. Like, there's actually, like, a waiting list. And the list has not, like, I still, the list is still there. You know, like it's, it's got different names on it now, but you know, it's constantly, you know, pieces are going out and new commissions are coming in and, and I don't really have a back stock ever. Um, you know, I had, I had one brown trout, extra, you know, cause, I, I made it, for, a commission, someone in Idaho and, and it was too big for their space. Um, and so I made another one for them, you know, the one that would fit their space better. And then I had that brown trout sitting around for like a week until somebody picked it up. Um, so any orders on the website, it's all, it's all custom, you know, I'll be in contact with you and, you know, you'll, you'll have some input on the process. And, you know, especially with the stands are really fun that way, because like I can orient the pieces really any way in the stand. Um, you know, like there's two main things that people request, kind of the jaw angle down, which I think works really well for like the more predatory fish. It kind of makes them look like they're you know about to eat a streamer or you know about to chase after a sculpin or something or you know the angled up which cut the cutthroats are really popular that way
Katie
I think it's because the alpine lakes rising for a dry fly or something
Martin
yeah a lot of people's image, mine included, of like a big you know fire truck colored cutthroat is is that fish coming up from the depths for your hopper.
Katie
Yeah, I could totally see that being, if I think of the number of times I've seen cutthroats, like a big cutthroat coming from my fly, it's often kind of coming up at me. Whereas brown trout, you might never see because they're down eating the big stuff down below.
Martin
Yeah. Yeah. And then another thing that I want to just touch on briefly is the naturalism series which originally was spawned from failure you know so pieces break and it feels really tragic to throw them away and and it used to they used to always break in the tail and so the first couple pieces in that series like the they're they're like breaching out of the water sometimes with a fly in their mouth you know the tail had exploded and rather than throwing them away I sawed the tail off and then you know turned them into that that that series but the last like you know half a dozen of those I've made have been commissioned which is cool to have like an idea spawned out of failure turn into like a series that people are you know responding to well
Katie
so is that the ones where the fish are kind of like three quarters of the way out of the water as though they're they're you know jumping on your line or something like that yeah okay yeah yeah definitely saw some of those on your website so you're saying that now people are actually requesting that from scratch you're you're not waiting for a broken one
Martin
which they're they're a lot more work than just the fish you know because I have to make all the water it's but yeah it's really cool that people are have been receiving those well and I actually I had one on hand but I just donated it to the the ret foundation auction which is happening like this weekend, I think.
Katie
Oh yeah. And you, you also mentioned, I wanted to shout this out, but, you said that you donate a bunch of money to, conservation organizations.
Martin
Yeah. So, certain species, Atlantic salmon and steelhead in particular, are disappearing and it's really up to the anglers to change that. Um, so, I've, I've got a good relationship with, Emerald Water Anglers, out in Seattle. It's a fly shop, owned by, Dave McCoy. I think he has a podcast too, like undercurrent or something. Uh, but, I, I initially, I made the first steelhead for Dave, and his shop. I made one for him and two for his shop. And we made the deal that, 20% of the profits from any steelhead sales go to the coalition and I i started thinking that was a really cool idea so I started doing the same thing with Atlantic salmon and I'm going to start doing the same thing soon with cutthroats because when I was in Wyoming this summer I learned about the the bounty on the rainbow trout system which is really cool where the rainbow trout in in the national parks and the Snake River Drainage have a bounty system where they have like these tags with cash prizes. So they encourage people to kill rainbows and then take them to fish and game. And then you might win a thousand bucks if you kill the right rainbow.
Katie
Yeah, I've heard of those programs before.
Martin
Yeah. And so I'm going to start doing that soon with the cutthroat sales. Once I figure out exactly, you know, which exactly who to get in contact to support that. But yeah, I feel like my pieces, you know, it's just another opportunity for the fly fishing community to support the conservation.
Katie
Absolutely.
Martin
Not to toot our own horns as fly fishermen, but we're more interested in the conservation aspect than like other realms of like the fish and game industry.
Katie
Yeah, I agree. I feel like most of the fly anglers I know are, they do at least some effort to benefit conservation. and I think it's awesome that you are donating your time and money and all your hard work to that because I feel like it's a win-win for everybody. People get beautiful art pieces, conservation organizations benefit. It's just great all around. So really happy to hear that you do that.
Martin
Yeah, absolutely.
Katie
Well, Martin, we can get wrapped up. I know you've got to get on with the rest of your evening too, but this was a really fascinating conversation. I've never talked to a glass blower before and to have one that does trout pieces it's you know it's it's easier to to get really excited about learning about that process seeing the final results and I would highly encourage anyone if they haven't checked out your work before to just go on instagram and see what you're working on because it's it's really really inspiring and just really cool to look at yeah all right guys thanks for listening don't forget to head over to the website fishuntamed.com for all episodes and show notes. And also please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening and I will be back in two weeks. Bye everybody.
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