South End News

Issue Date: 1/04/2007, Posted On: 1/3/2007

Narcotics to Noel
Chris Orchard
corchard@southendnews.com

 
Glass blower Wayne Strattman converts drug vials into tree trimmings
 
The hand-blown glass orbs, about the size of small limes, look like delicate teardrops and weigh almost nothing. Hold one in your hand and sneeze, and you get the impression the orb might break. Like snowflakes, all of the orbs — there are thousands in circulation — are different. Many have glass arms, legs or necks attached to them. Some are abstract shapes while others have been crafted into vaguely recognizable figures, like geese or people. These orbs, of course, are handcrafted Christmas tree ornaments. Before that, they were drug vials.

As far as Christmas ornaments go, it’s a buyers’ market. With New Year’s over and pine needles turning brown, stores are selling ornaments at discount prices to savvy buyers preparing for next year’s holiday. Drug vial ornaments aren’t likely to show up at your local Pier 1, however, though imitations might.

If there’s a unifying theme to all these converted drug vials, it’s a sense of whimsy. It takes South End resident Wayne Strattman, a glassblower, designer, artist and product developer based out of Tremont Street’s Piano Factory, only a few minutes to make each one. He creates them just for fun, and he finds the process relaxing.

Strattman has been turning drug vials into ornaments for six years. Where the vials came from is a bit mysterious. He’s accumulated thousands of the little glass bottles, explaining that “years ago a friend in the neighborhood … would bring me bags and bags of these drug vials.” The vials originated from “basically, [the] illicit South End drug trade.”

He’s not sure what kind of drugs were sold in the vials. “If I remember correctly, it was an animal tranquilizer or something … it was very popular in the drug scene, I guess, maybe in the ‘90s,” he said. (Liquid P.C.P., sometimes called animal tranquilizer, often came in such glass vials, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center website. Ketamine, also known as Special K, is another possibility.)

What we do know is that when Strattman is done heating, stretching, shaping and blowing the vials, the one-time illicit vessels are transformed into fun shapes.

As far as hand-made tree trimmings go, the drug vial ornaments aren’t bank-breakers. Strattman usually pesters friends into purchasing the ornaments for about $10 a piece. He then donates all the money to charities, such as Globe Santa or Cheers for Children. Sometimes he donates the ornaments themselves to organizations that in turn raffle them off for fundraising. This holiday season Strattman didn’t sell any. Instead, he gave them away.

The glass blower likens his Piano Factory studio to Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory, and it’s an apt description. Blowtorches spit blue flames at various work stations. Large glass discs, spheres and tubes contain dancing “bottled lightning.” Other glass “plasma tubes” feature waves of colored light. One of Strattman’s featured products is called “Luminglas,” an “interactive, kinetic lightning display” that can be made into any shape, such as a bar top.

Other objects in his studio look more like art installations. One table contains a collection of steak knives carving painful gashes into bottles. As realistic as the knives look, the shiny blades are made completely from platinum-coated glass. Another small sculpture is in the shape of a hammer, screwdriver and wrench.

Strattman, a master craftsman who teaches glass blowing to other glass blowers, is also published author. He wrote a regular column, “Neon Techniques,” for Signs of the Times, an industry magazine for the sign-making business. He also wrote a textbook of the same title. He’s lived in the South End for over two decades.

When not making artwork or producing lighting bolts in bottles, Strattman works as a designer and product developer. Before starting his company in 1986 — he’s been in the same location for over 20 years — Strattman worked as a commercial engineer. “I did artwork on the side when I was an engineer,” he explained. He “fell in love with working glass,” and decided to start his own business in the trade. “I enjoy the freedom, the creativity you don’t find in the corporate world.”

Companies hire him to design products, which he can create and hone in his South End studio. This is what pays the bills, he said, noting, with a little regret, that he spends 90 percent of his time running a small business and 10 percent of his time blowing glass.

This is why he loves making glass ornaments. He produces a few hundred every year, he said. The creative process of converting the vials into ornaments, spontaneous and instantly gratifying, is “wonderful therapy.”
He doesn’t think too much about the symbolic nature of the work. “It’s so obvious,” he said. “It goes from illicit drug trade … to making something decorative.”

More important is the sense of wonder captured in the ornaments once Strattman is done crafting them into something to hang on a Christmas tree. “There’s still magic to it. People are still dazzled by blowing glass,” he said. It’s a different sort of high