- My name is Jen Nauck, and I'm a glass artist and co-owner of the Glass Station.

- I'm Eben Horton.

I am a glass artist and co-owner of the Glass Station with my wife.

(uplifting music) (singer vocalizing) - [Interviewer] What's unique about glass?

- The industrial quality of glass.

You're working with heat, and it's loud and fiery and dangerous and immediate.

- Glass blowing is like playing a musical instrument.

I'm playing the guitar, Jen's playing bass, and you can just play together.

- We both have the sheet music, so we know exactly what we're playing.

And so it really does become like a dance.

You know, we never get in each other's way, and we've never burned each other, have we?

(laughs) When you understand how glass holds heat and how it wants to move at different temperatures, that's when the magic starts to happen.

(elegant dramatic music) - All of the glass is in this furnace.

It's 2,060 degrees in there, and there's 350 pounds of glass inside this thing in a bowl.

So as I'm twisting and turning and lifting, it's like scooping honey out of a honeypot.

So now I'm gonna go into this little cast iron tool.

This cools the surface of it.

I'm gonna put a bubble in it.

So now it's hollow.

(elegant dramatic music) Squeeze it down.

Blow it up a little more.

And that makes the float's hollow part.

You see how that's all nice and round.

Tap this.

Now I'm gonna gather up some more glass, and this will be for the seal that goes on the top that has the shape of Block Island on it.

There's that.

(elegant dramatic music) (upbeat music) (horn blaring) In 2010, I started the Glass Float Project.

Every year there's 550 floats that we make, and they get hidden in small batches pretty much every day on Block Island, between the first weekend in June and Columbus Day weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Interviewer] So how do you pick your hiding spots?

- I like to say that they pick me.

I'm just looking for a certain tree that might hold a float the right way.

(upbeat music) ♪ Do, do, do, da ♪ ♪ Do, da, do, do, do, do ♪ - So where's the strangest place you've ever hidden one?

- In the mouth of a dead striped bass.

- That is totally weird.

♪ Da, do, do, do, do, do, do ♪ ♪ Da, do, da, do, do, do ♪ (upbeat music) - I started hiding glass on beaches in Rhode Island in 2010.

I chose a glass float to use because it's such a simple form.

It's one of the quicker things to make.

When I started it, I had no idea that it would become as popular as it did.

- One of the most interesting parts of the project is the community that has sprung up in the Glass Float Project Facebook page.

There's over 11,000 people at this point.

It's an interaction between an artist, a piece of art, and the public, you know?

And I think the environment is a part of that art installation as well.

- [Eben] Pablo Picasso said, "The purpose to life is finding your gift.

The secret to life is giving it away."

- And that's the nature of the gift, too.

That when you give it away, you're not allowed to tell who you've given it to how they can use it.

The gift is the giving away, and then you release, and then you back away and let that gift go.

(upbeat music)