We talked to Modified Creations Glass, one of the brains behind the newly formed company Role Model Glass, about his career as a glassblower and his collaborations with his glassblowing partner Dawg House Glass. Modified Creations Glass is run by Gauge Hamilton, and Modified Creations Glass was born out of Gauge's medical cannabis use. Gauge has epilepsy and has been using cannabis to ease his symptoms for many years. At first he was buying glass, slowly building a collection of pieces that he would use to medicate. After a while Modified Creations Glass started getting frustrated with how often his glass pieces would break, and eventually he stopped collecting and thought that there might be a better way to get the glass that he wants.
Around this time Modified Creations Glass started selling his personal glass collection, and he used the money that he made from those sales to pay for his first National torch. Gauge intended to learn to blow glass himself in order to supply his own need and the needs of other cannabis users in his community. At first he worked on his own, selling pieces under the Modified Creations Glass brand. In those days he learned largely from online resources like YouTube tutorials, one of his favorites being John Kobuki's flower marble videos. Modified Creations Glass was mostly making simple spoon pipes at that time, and only very simple bubblers if any at all.
After a few years, Modified Creations Glass met a new friend who would completely change the trajectory of his glassblowing career. Approximately six or seven years ago Gauge was seeking glassblowing advice, so he was going around to different shops trying to make connections. He met an older gentleman that told him to go talk to a blower named Bob Dawg, owner of Dawg House Glass. Dawg House Glass was producing glass in styles that Gauge Hamilton had never seen before, it was artisan level cannabis glass with amazing artistic flair. Dawg House Glass taught various techniques to Modified Creations Glass over the next two years, typically meeting and working together virtually at that time.
After two years Modified Creations Glass and Dawg House Glass began working together in earnest, sharing a studio space and learning from one another as they collaborated together more and more regularly. They found that their personal aesthetic styles were favorably complimentary, and they were getting a good response from customers. Modified Creations Glass is known for some amazingly clean linework and his reticellos are simply phenomenal. Dawg House Glass' signature characteristic is the use of grotesquely lifelike teeth and eyes in a monster-inspired aesthetic style. As they continued to work together daily and on almost every piece, Gauge Hamilton and Bob Dawg decided that they should formally join forces, so they formed a new collaborative brand called Role Model Glass.
Role Model Glass is still just getting started, so be sure to keep an eye on this new brand. In the future Modified Creations Glass is going to be putting all creative energy into the Role Model Glass brand, so Gauge likely won't be working on many solo pieces for a while. You can check out Gauge Hamilton's amazing work, as well as a few Role Model Glass pieces, over on the Modified Creations Glass Instagram page. (@modifiedcreationsglass). We'll have an interview focused specifically on Role Model Glass coming out soon, so watch out for that interview as well!
