Video Transcript:

John:
There's a great piece of work that people can find at The Cupboard and Cupboard Glass Pipes.com. Tell us a little bit about your Bliss Dancer!

Robert:
It's a piece that I did as part of a demonstration workshop at Glass Craft a couple of years ago. It's based on the Bliss Statue. The artist's name escapes me right now because I'm old and I have no gray matter left. I'll probably think of it in the middle of the interview and just blurt it out to you. Anyway, it was a statue that was featured at Burning Man a few years back. I've always been fascinated by that piece and I attempted to recreate it in glass.

John:
Some lucky customer's going to purchase this and have it in their home. Give us a little back story about how it was made and what you remember about making it.

Robert:
I just been always fascinated by that particular pose. It's a very animated, expressive pose and I always though that the artist that did it, I almost said his name. It's going to come to me in the middle of this interview. I really thought it was a great pose and that's really what inspired me, trying to duplicate the pose. It turned out to be very difficult to duplicate. The way the body is twisted, the proportions, the balance of it. It's really a challenging piece. I've done it several times, but the one that's in the store is probably my best attempt.

John:
Who or what inspired you to be a glass blower?

Robert:
I've been doing this a really long time. I started in 1974 and my best explanation is, I blundered into this. When I'm 23 years old, I'm going through my life like a blind man in a dark alley and I literally blundered into it and just liked it and grabbed a hold. It's been 40 years.

John:
Do you have a favorite piece?

Robert:
It varies from time to time. There are pieces in my history that stand out. One of them might be a piece that's called "Wahine", which is the Hawaiian word for woman. It's a life size glass figure done in a networking technique. I'm also very partial to The Guns. The Guns are something that really resonate with me right now. Any of the guns could be called among my favorite bodies of work. If I look back through my history, there are others, but that's probably enough of an answer for this.

John:
Why do The Guns resonate with you?

Robert:
Because I'm not a gun person. I'm the opposite. I'm a pacifist, I don't like guns, I don't own guns, I don't shoot guns, but I moved into a rural area where everybody owns guns. In my attempt to understand them, I started looking at them a little more closely and I noticed that they have an aesthetic. It's an architectural aesthetic, like buildings. It's an aesthetic that follows function. I started to get interested in the aesthetic and wondered if I could express the aesthetic in glass without the lethal counterpart.

As it turned out, it worked really, really well. I came up with the idea of the weapons of peace. These are not guns. These are pipes. They look like guns. They're fashioned using the architectural beauty of a weapon, but they are pipe, not guns.

John:
Tell us the biggest perk of being a glass blower.

Robert:
Oh my God. It's a fun way to make a living. I've been hooked from day 1, 40 years ago. I got hooked on a medium. It's just a wonder and a privilege to be able to make my living and these days, make a pretty darn good living. Doing something I absolutely love doing.

John:
You've been doing this longer than a lot of glass blowers. Tell us how the industry has changed AND THE CHANGES YOU’VE SEEN.

Robert:
Where do I begin? The industry is unrecognizable. From what I saw when I first came into this 40 years ago, the way it is today, it is unrecognizable. It has expanded a thousand fold. The marketing, the number of people, the ability of the workers, the techniques, the materials that are available to us. None of this existed 40 years ago. It's absolutely amazing to have been a part of this progression over the last 40 years. It's really astonishing. I feel very privileged and honored to be a part of it still today. I hope I can hang on a little while longer. I'm having a lot of fun.

John:
The Cupboard would like to help you stay in touch with your fans via social media. We know we can see your work on cupboardglasspipes.com. Where else can we find you in social media?

Robert:
I only do 1 social media religiously, and that's Instagram. I'm not a Facebook person, I simultaneously will post on Twitter, so I'm on Twitter as well, but Instagram the way to find me. It's ramickelsen, that's my Instagram tag and you could follow. I post a lot and you could follow me there. I also have a webpage, RobertMickelsen.com, where I keep a- That's basically, I keep a tally of all the work I'm doing. It's my archive of all my work over the past- I think it goes back to 1994.

John:
With your vast experience, do you have any advice for glass blowers?

Robert:
I only have to say, the pursuit of excellence. Keep making the very, very best work you can and no matter what you do, if you do that, the world will come to you. You'll always be successful.

John:
We've talked to other artists who have actually traveled outside the United States to improve their craft. Have you done any of that?

Robert:
I've done quite a bit of travelling. In fact, I travel too much my wife tells me. It's always about improving, it's always about learning. Sometimes in the teacher's role, but it's still about learning. The whole life is about learning.

John:
Anything eye opening from travelling outside the United States as far as glass blowing goes?

Robert:
That it's a cross cultural appeal. Almost every culture has its glass and glass community. The Japanese have a very strong glass culture. Of course, the tradition. Europe goes back a thousand years. Australia has a relatively new glass culture, but it's very extensive. It's everywhere. Glass really appeals to human beings, I think. Everywhere that I've ever gone and traveled, there's always been glass art.

John:
We've heard a lot that glass blowing takes up a lot of time. How do you balance your personal life and professional life?

Robert:
I should let my wife answer that question and she would tell you, "He doesn't. All he ever thinks about is glass." She's probably right. All I ever think about is glass. I have no life.

John:
We hear a lot about the danger side of glass blowing. Have you ever suffered injuries?

Robert:
Yeah, so? It's part of the course. Burns, cuts, those are minor. Those are superficial injuries and they go with the territory. I would be concerned if something were to happen to my eyes or if I were to develop something like arthritis. A disease is far scarier than any injury that could result from blowing glass. So far, I've been lucky.

John:
Anything that we don't know about you that your fans would be surprised to know?

Robert:           
Yeah, but I'm not telling you here. If you don't mind, I got to have my secrets now.

John:
Fair enough. Thanks for adding your cool story to our series of the people changing the world of glass blowing. This is John for Cupboard Insights on CupboardGlassPipes.com.