Olaf Tappert glassblower workshop
Small outline of my career
I was born in Arnstadt in 1967. From 1974 to 1984, I attended the Polytechnic High School 1. I had my first contact with glass during a trip to Lauscha. I was infected by the virus that all glass makers carry within them.
1984 until 1986 I learned the profession of a “thermometer blower” in the Geraberg thermometer factory. After successful completion I soon realized that this work did not really fill me up. So the announcement that a glassworks was being built in Arnstädter Bleikristall came just in time. So in 1989 I started to learn my second profession of “glassmaker” in Weißwasser. That was exactly what I had imagined under “blowing glass”.
Leider, no glassworks was built in Arnstadt in the course of the reunification and reorganization. So after my community service in the Marienstift Arnstadt I had to look for a new job. I found this in the “Rosalin Glassworks” in Ilmenau. Unfortunately, this work was only of short duration, and this company, like many others, was thrown into the mills of insolvency.
My small glassblowing workshop, which I had set up in my grandfather’s workshop, now remained my retreat. The last profession I learned was in the rescue service of the Arbeiteramariterbund in Arnstadt, where I have been working as a paramedic for twenty years.
2001 was a year of fundamental changes in my life. I found my wife and started a family in Gehren, Thuringia. This is also where our “glass workshop” came into being, which we run together. We are represented with a stand for traditional Thuringian arts and crafts at many Easter and Christmas markets throughout Germany. Since that time I also visit the elementary schools with my mobile glassblowing workshop, in order to give the children an understanding of my handicraft and the fascination of glass.
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