Breathtaking light fixtures come from Healdsburg studio

From the fiery furnaces of a Healdsburg warehouse emerge some of the most breathtaking of light fixtures.

Dozens of floating bubbles that catch the light as they appear to drift down from the ceiling. Boxes of clear balls encased in brushed nickel pressed together like ice cubes of mountain spring water. Clusters of crystalline glass prisms or nests of opalino glass spun in the shape of a giant hanging chrysalis.

It’s interior lighting as fine art, with each piece an illuminated sculpture.

They are the work of Studio Bel Vetro, one of the country’s leading custom glass and metal lighting studios. Its chandeliers, sconces, pendant lights and other figures grace luxury homes and destinations from The Beverly Hills Hotel to the lobby of world famous Chateau Le Frontenac in Quebec. To see one up close, look up as you enter the The Harris Gallery in downtown Healdsburg.

These functionally stunning works are made by hand in a single warehouse studio by a small team of seven headed by a glass artist who trained with the masters of Murano and his designer-wife.

They create each piece from idea to finish, from designing and drawing to blowing the glass, fabricating the metal fixtures and installing the electrical wiring.

Many of their pieces are distinctively contemporary. But behind each fixture is Old World artistry rooted in centuries old traditions.

Chief Glassblower Paulo DeLima, who owns the studio with his wife Lisa Spinella, majored in glass at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. But after finishing a degree in fine arts he had a choice to travel to Seattle for further training or to Venice, where some of Europe’s finest glass has been produced for hundreds of years.

He chose Italy. There he studied under Primo Maestro Elio Quarisa, a legendary glassblower who started working in the glass factories as a child of 9 during World War II to help support his family. He was the chief of design at the exclusive and oldest furnace in Murano, Barovier & Toso, founded in 1295.

“They work and let you watch,” said the Brazilian-born DeLima, who came to the U.S. as a child of 8. “Pretty much you just get used as free help. But the opportunity to be around stuff you’d never have access to in the states is worth every bit of it.”

DeLima said the secrets of Murano itself were closely guarded. But that is beginning to change as new generations of glassblowers are leaving to taking their skills elsewhere.

“For young people growing up in Murano it’s factory work. It’s not glamorous. It’s an American thing for it to be a glamorous art. That’s why a lot of them are coming to the U.S. where they can make art out of it and get well paid for it.”

Quarisa kept all the old Venetian techniques alive and passed them on to some students.

“Paulo was lucky enough not only to be one of the students but to be one of his assistants when he came to the United States,” Spinella said.

FIT FOR A MEDICI

DeLima also did further study under Davide Fuin, who lives in Murano but comes to the United States to teach once or twice a year. From Fuin, DeLima learned how to create fabulously ornate glass goblets fit for a Medici.

“The Venetian-style goblet is made very, very quickly. It’s all about eye and hand coordination. It’s on the highest level of skill, the epitome of glass technique,” said Spinella.

A professional ballerina until an injury forced her to retire from the dance, she turned to art, first as a photographer, studying at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. But after taking a class in glassblowing on a whim, “I found it a mind blowing process and I loved it. I never looked back,” she said from the mezzanine of their Grove Street studio, where samples of glinting glass balled chandeliers and goblets are arrayed.

“The goblets are Paulo’s hobby. It keeps his mind and hands sharp and fresh. There is an old quote, ‘It takes an hour to make a goblet and 20 years of experience.”

Down on the floor below, assistants Tyler Stupich and Megan Dykema work, gathering molten glass on hot blowpipes from a continuous 2,100-degree furnace that is turned off only once a year for cleaning and restocked with 150 pounds of glass each week.

Stupich blows the glass into a bubble. Then, at a bench, he works the glass with a shaping tool, periodically inserting the glass into a warming furnace called “The Glory Hole” to keep it pliable or popping the pipe into a hot “garage” to keep it piping hot.

Paulo handles the finer work that requires more precision and sculpting. In the metal shop where he fabricates with assistant Phil Farnsworth and does finish work, is a glass antler chandelier in progress that eventually will include 28 hand-made branches, each with realistic texture. When finished, the 100-pound piece will hang in a new bar in Geyserville.

Although Spinella loves glassblowing, she found her true calling as a designer.

“When I met Paulo I had a good skill base. But I was not Paulo,” she said. “There are certain people that just have the hands and other people that will just fight the glass forever. It will be good but it won’t be great.”

But DeLima is constantly challenged by her designs, and making them work is a real collaboration.

KNOTTED GLASS

Although most of their work is contemporary, from jewel-like hanging facets to balls of richly textured knotted glass, DeLima does incorporate some Venetian-inspired techniques.

Among them is Reticello, a 16th-century technique that entails small diamonds of glass with air bubbles trapped inside, set within what looks like a delicate “net.”

He also employs “murrini,” a Venetian approach that takes multiple glass pebbles and fuses them together. This makes for richly textured hanging fixtures, pendants and wall sconces and even tabletops.

Most lamps are wired with LED, which Spinella said has markedly improved in visual quality in the last few years.

Since trucking their equipment to Healdsburg from Massachusetts and setting up shop three years ago, the couple has developed a growing clientele for work that is featured at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and design showrooms throughout the country.

They’ve done several fixtures for the much anticipated new restaurant Single Thread, slated to open this spring. Bursting at the seams, Studio Bel Vetro is in the process of setting up a separate showroom in Healdsburg.

Custom light fixtures are not inexpensive. But $125 to $300 will buy a hand-blown and sculpted Venetian-style goblet.

“We actually drink from them at home,” Spinella said of the highly ornamental stemmed glasses, each one distinctive.

“When we have people over we have all the different goblets out. It’s fun. We set the table and people sit in front of their favorite goblet. That’s how they choose their seat.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204. On Twitter @megmcconahey.