Check us out in The Times-Picayune!
Featured in the Sunday, November 30 issue of The Times-Picayune for our collaborations with doctors and health care workers in our hot shop! (article body is typed below for ease)
For more than 40 years, Jean Blair has become very familiar working with doctors in several hospitals throughout the country. But rather than in the hospital setting, Blair takes them to her office, filled with hot furnaces, torches, blowpipes, paddles, jacks, and sheers.
Blair is the founder of the New Orleans School of Glassworks & Printmaking Studio two blocks from the National WWII Museum in Downtown New Orleans.
Whenever the stars align and schedules meld, Blair and her team at the Magazine Street studio host doctors, surgeons, nurses, technicians, physician assistants, and more to take a moment out of their busy lives saving people and make some art of their own.
From cups to glass hearts to Christmas ornaments, guests can make it in the studio.
Blair started this project 40 years ago, around the time she opened the shop. After moving to New Orleans from New York City, where she worked for Time Life, she connected with John Ochsner, the founder of the Ochsner hospital system.
"(He) asked me to photograph for his slide lectures in the operating room of his heart surgeries and transplants," Blair said.
Since that time, Blair has grown to appreciate the health care community and has made it her mission to show that appreciation to health care workers in New Orleans and around the country.
"One of our specialties has been inviting doctors and their staffs in to show them that blowing glass is similar to surgery," Blair said. "The use of instruments you use to maneuver the molten glass into shape without touching it is similar to using medical instruments."
Blair and her team have hosted Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist from New York University Langone Hospital, who made glass hearts, thoracic surgeons who have made glass brains and glass livers during their time in the studio.
Depending on availability, Blair hosts health care workers as often as she can to thank them for their knowledge and "TLC" with patients every day.
"Having been involved with hospitals for so many years, I have noticed a tremendous need to thank the doctors and the hospital working staff for the generosity given to so many of the patients," Blair said. "You only have to be a patient–or relative of a patient–to realize the numerous people that come in and out of your room who are responsible for taking care of you."
In November, Blair invited eight colleagues and team members of Dr. Katrina Wade, a surgical oncologist at Ochsner Hospital.
The doctors and colleagues become captivated with what they are able to create while blowing glass, according to Blair.
