Meet Freddie Blache (muffinjaw Designs)

 

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Freddie Blache (muffinjaw Designs) a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Freddie, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

Being a glassblower is an intensely brutal profession. Your days are filled with lifting far more weight than your back should allow, sweating next to a 2,000-degree furnace, and abusing nearly every single muscle, tendon, and joint in your body. While we slowly degrade our eyesight and probably-but-not-hopefully cause irreparable damage to our lungs, none of this is quite as taxing as being a business owner. Our work ethic comes from knowing there is simply nobody else who is doing or will do this for us. Nobody is going to wake up at 3am to arrive on-site, unload multiple hundreds of pounds of equipment, and wait for glass to melt only to work for 2-3 hours hoping at least one other person will show the slightest interest in what you do. Nobody is going to wrap, pack, transport, unpack, and display bits of glass during a local craft market only to make enough money to barely cover gas, re-wrap, re-pack, transport, and re-unpack all the bits that didn’t sell. Most importantly, nobody is going to do this relentlessly for years.
But we did. When we were studying glassblowing in school, we were told countless times that to be successful in our field of glassblowing we would have to move somewhere else. We were told not enough people in our community would support us. We were told we would have to go work for someone else, and that we would certainly, definitely never have our own studio. But we do.
Our work ethic has come from the simple knowledge that to get somewhere we were going to have to do it ourselves. We’ve pushed, we’ve failed, we’ve fought, we’ve hoped, and we’ve sweat more than what is appropriate to write about in an interview. The most critical thing we’ve done has been remaining a team. We’ve never quit. We’ve amazingly kept our dream and each other alive. All of it has mattered. All of it has brought us to where we are now, and we don’t stop here.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Muffinjaw Designs is a glassblowing team based out of Mobile, AL comprised of Freddie Blache (owner), Caroline Gratton (operations manager/events coordinator), Tres Johns (color and sculpting guru), and Gage Nobles (stemware specialist). Our team has grown from working out of the shed in our back yard to occupying a 4,000 square foot warehouse studio in downtown Mobile. We specialize in in-studio and on-site glassblowing experiences and educational programs. Our goal is to make glassblowing more accessible to members of our community.
Our recent expansion has allowed us to pursue more creative facets of our business as we are able to take on more ambitious projects, collaborate with other local businesses, and reach larger populations beyond the Mobile Bay area. We host blow-your-own glass events, multi-week classes, field trips, and more.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Persistence – You’re going to fail; you can’t learn without it. If you give up when things get tough or aren’t going your way, then you’ll never make it to the next level. Practice gets you closer to perfect

Faith – You have to believe in yourself, your team, and your craft. Others will see your determination and then they’ll believe in you.

Exploration – You have to be willing to try new techniques, designs, subjects, and markets. Stagnant water breeds bacteria; moving water sustains life.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

Our favorite days on the job are during our educational outreach opportunities, particularly with kids ages 4-13. Everyday techniques we utilize in our work suddenly become magic with these audiences. The bewildering applications of physics and chemistry ignite the students’ interest in subjects that are often lackluster, leading to deeper discussions bubbling from what they are witnessing.

We would love to work with more arts education organizations and centers around the country to preserve the crafting of handmade glass for future generations and aid our mission of making glassblowing more accessible. With our portable glass studio, we are able to take the hot shop directly to students and keep this spark alive.

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