>> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by: Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!

>> ASHLEY: Coming up, travel to Dunkirk for a look at one of Indiana's hidden gems.

>> BRANDON: Meet a Monroe County marble master.

>> ASHLEY: Travel to Corydon to meet the folks at Zimmerman Art Glass.

>> BRANDON: And meet an Indiana University craftsman creating one-of-a-kind scientific glassware.

That's all on this episode of -- >> TOGETHER: "Journey Indiana."

♪ >> BRANDON: Welcome to "Journey Indiana."

I'm Brandon Wentz.

>> ASHLEY: And I'm Ashley Chilla.

And we are coming to you once again from the Haan Museum of Indiana Art.

On this episode, we are featuring some of our favorite Indiana glass stories, both artistic and otherwise.

>> BRANDON: That's right.

And we are starting off at another museum in the small town of Dunkirk.

Producer Jason Pear has the story.

♪ >> You could spend hours in here and not see everything.

>> Here is The Glass Museum in Dunkirk.

The self-proclaimed glass capital of Indiana.

>> Well, Dunkirk was here because of the natural gas that was in the ground.

And at one time, we had 12 glass factories here in town.

When the gas ran out, which was probably in the 1920s sometime, a lot of the smaller factories left, and we ended up with two.

One was the Indiana Glass Factory, and the other was the Hart Glass Factory at the time.

>> Hart, which got its start making bottles, changed hands several times and is now part of the Ardagh Group.

They are still making bottles, lots of bottles.

>> The amber furnace makes nothing but 12-ounce beer bottles for Budweiser.

They make approximately 2.5 million a day.

>> The Indiana Glass Company, which closed its doors in 2004, was known for tableware.

>> Indiana Glass probably has 50% of what's in here.

But being that Indiana Glass was in existence for over 100 years, they made a lot of glass and a lot of different items.

>> The Glass Museum began decades ago with Kenny Webster, a local insurance salesman with a small glass collection.

Over time, that small collection grew and eventually a permanent home was built in the 1980s.

>> Well, I can't tell you exactly how much space we have.

It's large.

It's the largest glass museum in state of Indiana.

And it's probably the largest one in the Tri-State area.

We have over 20,000 pieces of glass on display, and we probably have another 10,000 in storage off site.

And we have glass from all over the world.

It's not just from Indiana Glass or from Kerr or Ball Brothers.

It's from all over the world.

>> Among those 20,000 pieces, you will find one-of-a-kind glass canes, cases full of Depression and carnival glass, and a beautiful set of pink and gold plates that was never used.

And keeping track of all of those different things is no small task.

>> We're trying to document everything we have in here, and that has been quite a chore.

We have probably got 7,600 pieces that we got cataloged now.

But, yes, most of it is up here in my head.

One the things I always ask people when they come into the museum, if they are a collector.

And if they are and they see something that's not right, to let us know, and we will change it right away.

It's almost impossible to be able to have knowledge of everything that's in here.

>> So if you are a collector or just curious, The Glass Museum in Dunkirk is definitely worth checking out.

>> And it only costs $2 to get in.

So one of the biggest surprises in the state of Indiana.

>> ASHLEY: Brandon, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I actually collect blue glass.

>> BRANDON: Really?

>> ASHLEY: I do.

And I saw some -- some pieces at that museum that would look really nice in my collection.

>> BRANDON: And if you would like more information, just visit the address on the screen and look for The Glass Museum page.

Earlier, we caught up with Ellie Haan to learn all about the incredible Haan Museum.

♪ >> The Haan Museum is many museums in one.

It's a house and historic building that was originally a building at the World's Fair in St. Louis.

This all started when my husband Bob and I bought this house in 1984, and we started working on it in 1992.

At that point in time, we decided we needed to have something to decorate the walls.

We thought, well, you know, Indiana art would be a good way to go, because there are fewer artists to learn, and it will be a lot less expensive, and you can have a lot more significant collection.

When we realized it was the quality of a museum, we started concentrating on furniture.

So the furniture is all American furniture, with some really wonderful pieces.

And then we started collecting ceramics.

So there's a wonderful Indiana ceramics collection as well.

So lots of different things for lots of different people.

There's just so much wonderful art from Indiana, we just thought it needed to be shared.

We recently dedicated a statue called Generations by Tuck Langland, and Tuck and his wife Jan donated that.

And it's an older gentleman, and he's got a child on his shoulder, and they like that for the Haan Museum because this gentleman is passing his knowledge and his culture on to his granddaughter.

And the Haan Museum, you know, collects cultural things and passes them on from one generation to the next.

When you come to the Haan Museum, it's like stepping back in time.

You can see this wonderful architecture and the wonderful old furniture.

No matter what you want, whether you like art or antiques or architecture, it's here at the Haan.

>> BRANDON: You can learn more at Haanmuseum.org.

>> ASHLEY: Up next, we are headed to Monroe County, to meet an artist creating tiny worlds inside glass marbles.

Producer Saddam Abbas has the story.

♪ >> Art is a way to be expressive.

It's tough.

It can mean two different things.

Being an artist, it just depends on your perspective, but it definitely means, you know, a show of creativity of the mind, and that we are all blessed with an ability to create.

And once you have got enough practice at it and if enough people like it and you can put it in front of enough people, then art can also be, you know, a way of life then at that point.

So that's what art is.

♪ >> Every idea is a new idea.

So that's why it becomes like a favorite.

So when I'm listening to music, every song has a reason to be kind of a favorite song.

I have been playing bass guitar now for about 25 years.

I had an idea to make guitar knobs, like for the control portion of a guitar, and I wanted to make those out of glass.

I had never seen anybody make those out of glass before.

It started as a hobby, but it grew into something more, one step at a time.

I was a welder in Arizona.

And in Arizona, in Tucson where I lived, there's welding shops everywhere that you could get supplies from.

And then when I moved back here to Indiana, where I'm from -- I'm from Bloomington, there's no welding shops.

You have to go up to Indianapolis to get supplies for welding.

And so my friend who suggested that I buy a glass torch also informed me that Bloomington has one of, like, the top warehouses for glassblowing stuff in the country.

I became a glassblower out of convenience.

♪ When I make a marble, the beginning of a marble actually starts as a cup, and then the cup is where I put all the glass inside.

And then melt it down.

All the active heating will happen here on the torch.

I consider this to be, like, the beginning of one of the marbles.

It's all solid and ready to go.

These are pieces that I make.

Then I will take them, and I will heat them up in different bands and twist them back and forth to make a zigzag pattern.

And then that gets, you know, squished up in the mold there, and you can smooth it and turn it.

And when you do it enough, like it will be, like, perfectly round.

And then there's a little trick to get it off the handle there.

And then there's a little trick to polish it.

After you do that, that would make like a really neat looking marble.

I had never seen anybody put sparkles in a marble like this.

And so this has every element that I wanted in a marble.

It gives me depth.

It gives me sparkles, and it gives me, like, straight lines.

Making something like this and then making it a marble, like, that just checks all the boxes for me.

Like, it just felt like this was the way that I wanted to make 'em for sure, because it was, like, I love everything about the style.

♪ Everywhere, anywhere, anything could be inspiration.

Colors like -- any color combination that I haven't seen lately, any color combination that I haven't seen ever.

The actual artistic process, it actually begins with the previous marble a lot of times.

The glass, the colors of the glass, I have to get all different types of colors of glass.

They all change color with the way that they are heated, okay?

So if you heat up a piece of red, for instance, it will turn brown.

If I have those colors together, sometimes I see them in different colors than what they really are.

And when I see their hot colors, sometimes the hot colors will definitely give me an idea for another set of colors that I would like to try on a marble.

My two aspects that are the strongest in glass are my marble making and my turtle making.

It's kind of odd.

I was asked to make a sea turtle pendant one time.

It was a very good friend of mine, and so I did it.

And ever since I made one, I just wanted to make one better and better and better and better.

So I just got hung up on the sea turtle pendants because I'm a perfectionist.

♪ When I'm making a marble, it is sort of figuratively and literally, in a way, my own little world.

When I bend it back and forth and smoosh it together, it's like, you know, you make a round little thing that could be like a world, right?

But when -- when you look inside of it, the way that they wave back and forth, I think of them as landscapes when I'm making them.

So, like, in a way, they are their own worlds, like -- it's like a picture of a fantasy world that doesn't exist.

>> ASHLEY: My dad plays guitar, and I think such a cool gift would be some of those little volume or tuner knobs that he makes for the guitars.

>> BRANDON: Yeah, it takes so many hours to craft a guitar, and then this guy is spending that many more hours crafting the accoutrement that go on the guitar.

It's really impressive.

>> ASHLEY: Mm-hmm.

Want to learn more?

Just head over to Facebook.com/broxglass.

>> BRANDON: Up next, we are headed south to Corydon, to learn about a family tradition that has continued through five generations.

♪ >> When I was a kid, you know, our mothers, they all get us that little book, you know, that you write in so when you go to kindergarten, you know, they put your picture in there and talk about who your teacher was and who your friends were and all that stuff.

Well, at the bottom of that book -- and I still have it at my mom's house -- but it says, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up?

And so there's firemen and policemen and lawyer and stuff like that on there.

There's about ten choices, and for me, there was always the blank there that said other.

And we would always write in glassblower.

Always.

Even since I was a little kid.

♪ The history goes back quite a ways, back to my grandfather, who started this business in 1942.

Before that, he was actually a lamp chimney blower.

They made the glass globes that went around a kerosene lamp, you know, before they had electricity and that sort of thing.

When the electricity started hitting those rural areas, he switched over to this and created the Zimmerman Art Glass Company.

And they started by making a few items, paper weights and vases and perfume bottles, which we still do today.

My father was in it for 42 years.

This is my 41st year.

So each generation has added to that inventory.

We do over 100 different items now, and there's still -- I want to say probably the majority of those, you know, 85% of those items are all functional pieces of art that you can use in everyday life.

The tools that I use out there, you know, they came out of that lamp chimney factory.

I mean, they are over 100 years old, but that's what glass people do.

That aspect of it hasn't changed a whole lot.

♪ Everything in here is built in layers of glass.

And everything is made on these long iron rods.

I always like to say it's like putting spaghetti on a fork.

You know, you go in there and you twist it, and it will gather right up on there.

You start with a small layer, like I said, about the size of a golf ball, and then you add color to it, and then you form a design out of that colored glass.

Then once you have that, you will put another layer over top of that.

That traps the design on the inside.

And you can get as many layers as you want or as many layers as you can handle, and then build your designs as you go.

That's one thing glass offers.

It offers a heck of a challenge.

And when you start a piece, you have got to finish it.

There's no putting it down and saying, well, I will go take a break or catch my breath here.

You know, it doesn't work that way.

You start it.

You will have to finish it eventually.

Years ago when I was younger, I thought okay, I will make these great big pieces, and these big elaborate things, and we were always kind of geared towards that to get our equipment so we can do those types of things, but I have kind of gotten away from that.

I'm kind of over all of that.

And my job, I think, where I'm at in that art world is that I'm supposed to educate people so that when they go out and they see a piece of art glass made by Dale Chihuly or one of these big famous artists, then they will be able to appreciate that much more from being here in our shop.

That's the big thing for us.

Just about everyone comes in here gets a demonstration.

You know, even if you come in with your family and there's just two of you or four of you, it doesn't matter, a whole busload, we will sit down and tell you how it's made.

They will sit there and watch us for an hour.

They will say, my God, this is mesmerizing, but they don't understand too that it's -- while I'm making the piece, I'm also being mesmerized a little bit.

When you are making a piece that you are doing it over again and over and again and over and again, it becomes very pleasing.

I always told people that on days when things are going really good, I would just as soon be sitting here working, than sitting home in my La-Z-Boy watching a ballgame because it becomes so relaxing.

♪ There's that journey that you go through, you know, because you are this basic craftsman trying to figure out how to work the tools and what angle to hold them at and how much pressure to put on them.

And then all of a sudden, after so many years, then you kind of get that -- you are in the beginning stages of a master craftsman.

And then all of a sudden, you are kind of just reacting because you just -- you start working more by rhythm, and then to me, that's my whole take on when the artistry comes in, when you are just going by rhythm.

♪ The old building, I used to spend a lot of time in there, just sitting there and talking to my father.

I had a little perch-like thing I would sit up on there, right behind his bench in the old building and talk to him.

The old building burnt down in 1983.

So we built a brand new structure, right over the original place where my dad was at.

And I kind of always considered that my place and my brother's place.

Then we worked there together up until his death for about 25 years.

And then when we made the move over to here, it's apples and oranges compared to the old place, but it's actually for the next generation.

It will be their place.

Yeah, I love the history of it.

I really do, mainly because I stood on some pretty wide shoulders.

People come in and they say, we love what you have done.

Well, you know, my grandfather, when they started, they went several weeks, you know, without customers even coming in the building.

You know, the courage that those guys had to do that is, you know -- I mean, is really pretty remarkable, I think.

And I love being a part of that.

>> BRANDON: You know, we don't really hold to that tradition any longer of, like, passing on a skill set.

If you were, you know, given the skills from your father, what would your job be right now instead of this?

>> ASHLEY: I mean, my dad is an amazing musician.

So I have taken some of that on.

I'm nowhere near as good as he is.

He plays the guitar, like I said -- he's amazing at it.

So definitely have to be something in music.

>> BRANDON: You can learn more at Facebook.com/ ZimmermanArtGlassBusiness.

>> ASHLEY: And finally, a story from the "Journey Indiana" archives.

Producer Jason Pear introduces us to Don Garvin, a glassblower merging creativity and science.

♪ >> Glass is one of those things that you don't really think about, because you see through it.

You see past it.

But it's in our world all around us.

♪ My day job is to support the research and the teaching of the chemistry department and then all the other departments that would happen to use glass, geology, physics, psychology, biology.

We're the only shop on campus.

I started in the department in 1981.

The guy that was over the glass shop at that time asked me if I would like to be his apprentice, and I said, I don't know anything about it.

I didn't even really know there was a glass shop in the building.

So I did a four-year apprenticeship.

I started working with him in 1986.

Then he retired in 1996 or '97.

And I have been running it by myself since then.

♪ A lot of it is research.

Faculty, they will have grad students, post-docs, each one has their own project that they are working on.

They may come down with a need.

They are going to run an experiment, and they need a piece of glassware to do this.

They know the direction, and they know they need this piece of equipment, but they don't know exactly how to build it.

The most difficult thing to learn when you are heating a piece of glass is that you have to rotate it, because if you don't, it's just going to get hot on one side.

So to learn to get both hands to turn at the same speed, at the same time, and then keep it level and straight, it took a little while to master that skill.

So the lathe rotates the glass for us.

The tailstock on the lathe moves.

So I can feed in glass, or take glass away, and then by blowing air into it, I can expand the glass, even though a machine is involved, it's a handmade piece.

We've had literally days involved in something, get down to the last seal, and you hear it go tink.

And you see the crack run through it.

So then you just got to start all over.

There's some things that make you scratch your head.

♪ One morning my phone rang.

It was from the School of Music.

And they said, Don, can you repair a glass flute?

I was, like, I don't -- I don't know.

I have never seen one before, but now my curiosity was piqued.

So I was like, okay.

Send the guy over.

His name was Brent Michael Davids.

He was from Minnesota, and he was a music composer.

And they brought him here to give a concert, and he played the glass flute.

When he got off the airplane and opened up his case, his flute was in 100 pieces.

So he came over, and we took the flute and Scotch taped it back together like a jigsaw puzzle, where all the broken pieces are, so I could get some rough dimensions from it.

We spent all day Monday and all day Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, he walked out with the flute.

Called me afterwards, said it sounded great, and told me that on the weekend, he was traveling to DC, and he was playing at the Library of Congress.

So on Monday morning, I never heard of a glass flute.

By Wednesday, it was giving a concert at the IU School of Music, and then in the weekend, it was at DC.

♪ The favorite part is working with the students.

You begin to develop relationships with somebody that's going to be here for four or five years, and then see them be successful in the lab.

The second part is just seeing the glass come from this to this, and watch it become fluid while it's hot, and then see the finished product.

When you raise the oven door on the mornings -- usually we run it overnight.

And it's all clean and sparkling, and the light reflects off of it, and it's a satisfying feeling to raise the oven door in the morning and see everything that you have created and it's still in one piece.

♪ >> ASHLEY: You know, Brandon, there's so much creativity involved in glassblowing or in marble making.

I never really thought about the creativity that's sort of put into scientific experiments.

>> BRANDON: Yeah, all the creative problem solving to make sure that form fits function.

It's really kind of breathtaking.

>> ASHLEY: You can see more at the address on the screen.

>> BRANDON: And as always, we encourage you to stay connected with us.

>> ASHLEY: Just head over to JourneyIndiana.org.

There you can see full episodes, connect with us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and suggest stories from your neck of the woods.

>> BRANDON: We also have a map feature that allows you to see where we have been and to plan your own Indiana adventures.

And before we say good-bye, we have got one more Indiana glass story to share.

Well, an event, really.

The 12th Annual Great Glass Pumpkin Patch will take place Saturday, October 16th on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn.

You can get all the info at the address on the screen.

>> ASHLEY: This is definitely a favorite of mine, and we'll leave you with scenes from some previous pumpkin patches.

♪ >> Production support for "Journey Indiana" is provided by: Columbus Visitors Center, celebrating everywhere art and unexpected architecture in Columbus, Indiana.

Tickets for guided tours and trip planning information at Columbus.in.us.

And by WTIU members.

Thank you!