Venice, Italy, Oct. 11 (U.S.): Murano glassblowers have escaped plagues and pestilences. They have moved into high-value artistic creations to outpace the low-priced competition from Asia. But rising energy prices are destroying their economic model.
The dozens of kilns that remain on Lake Island where the Venetian rulers moved blown glass 700 years ago, must burn around the clock, or else the expensive crucible inside the kilns will break. But the price of methane that powers kilns has risen fivefold on the global market since Oct. 1, meaning glassblowers face certain losses in the orders they fill, at least for the foreseeable future. ) reports.
“People are desperate,” said Gianni de Cicci, president of the Convertiginato craftsmen association in Venice. “If it continues like this, and we don’t find solutions to sudden and unusual gas prices, the entire Murano glass sector will be in grave danger.”
Medium-sized glassblowing businesses like Simone Cenedese’s consume 12,000 cubic meters (420,000 cubic feet) of methane per month to keep its seven furnaces at temperatures in excess of 1,000°C (1,800°F) 24 hours a day. They are only closed once a year for annual maintenance in August.
Its monthly bills typically range from €11,000 to €13,000 per month, on a fixed-rate consortium contract that expires on September 30. Sendes, exposed to market volatility, now expects methane costs to increase to 60,000 euros ($70,000) in October, as the natural gas market struggles with rising Chinese demand, Russian supply uncertainty and alarmingly low European stocks.
Craftsmen like Cenedese must now take into account an insurmountable increase in energy costs as they meet the demands that have promised to pull them out of the still-pandemic crisis of the sector in 2020.
We cannot increase the prices that have already been set. …that means we have to work at a loss for at least two months,” said Cendez, a third-generation glassblower who took up the business started by his father. “We sell home decorations, not necessities, which means if prices can’t be reached, there will obviously be no more orders.”
Cendez, like the others on the island, is considering shutting down one of his furnaces to face the crisis. It will cost 2000 euros for the broken crucible. It will also slow production and put pending orders at risk.
Its five glassblowers move with unspoken precision in their design to fill an order of 1,800 gold foil Christmas ornaments bound for Switzerland.
One begins the process with a red hot melted dot at the end of a stick that one rolls onto a gold leaf, applying it evenly before handing the form over to the maestro, who reheats it in one oven before gently blowing into the stick. To create the perfect orb. It still glows red when he cuts it off a wand, and another glass blower grabs it with prongs to add the final flourish, a pointed tip created from a spritz of molten glass placed by an apprentice.
As that dance progresses, another dance begins, weaving and swaying in the empty spaces. Together, they can make 300 ornaments per day, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.
“No machine can do what we do,” said maestro David Cimarosti, 56, who’s been a glassblower for 42 years.
Decades ago, Murano glass blowers have turned from wood furnaces, with uneven results, to methane, which burns at temperatures high enough to create the microcrystalline clarity that makes their creations so valuable. It is the only gas that glassblowers are allowed to use by law. They were caught in Catch-22 Global Goods.
For now, artisans hope that the international market will calm down by the end of the year, although some analysts believe that the fluctuations may continue until spring. If so, the damage to the island’s economy and individual businesses could be profound.
Rome’s government has provided relief to Italian families facing rising energy prices, but so far there has been nothing of substance for Murano glassblowers, whose small size and energy density make them particularly vulnerable. The artisan lobby is meeting with members of parliament next week to try to get direct government aid, which de Chicchi said is possible under new EU rules put in place after the pandemic.
In addition to economic losses, islanders fear losing a tradition of making their island synonymous with artistic excellence.
Already, the sector has declined from an industry of thousands of workers in the 1960s and 1970s to a network of mostly small and medium-sized craft firms that employ a total of about 300 glassblowers. The history of glassblowing in Venice dates back to 1200 years and has been passed down in Murano from father to son for generations. But even in its small size and despite its creative rewards, it struggles to attract young people to toil in its workshops where summer temperatures can reach 60°C (140°F).
“The value of this tradition, this history and this culture is priceless, it goes beyond the financial value of Murano glassmaking,” said Luciano Gambaro, co-owner of Gambaro & Tagliapietra. “More than 1,000 years of culture can not stop at the gas problem.”
RAE