Made on Cape Cod: McDermott Glass Studio

Among the galleries and antiques shops along Route 6A in Sandwich sits McDermott Glass Studio, where David McDermott and Yukimi Matsumoto practice a style of glassblowing unlike anywhere else. 

McDermott's style is quite desirable. He's had his work featured on TV and the big screen, but most impressively he's been commissioned by six U.S. Presidents, Pope John Paul II, the Empress of Japan, the Empress of Portugal and Henry Kissinger.

McDermott's style is balanced by Matsumoto. Matsumoto says McDermott is “excellent with the shape; he can make an elegant shape without thinking.” Whereas McDermott says Matsumoto’s “eye for color is amazing.”

The product of their unique style and combination of skills has landed them in more than 150 different galleries across the country.

McDermott Glass Studio employs a Scottish technique of glassblowing, rather than the more common American-Italian method introduced to the country in the 1980s. He describes it as “fast and hot—able to churn out product in a much more efficient way.”                                           

McDermott's journey in glassblowing began almost 40 years ago when he filled in for a sick glassblower at a glass factory where he was working. When he saw what glassblowers do—the physical and mental aspects—his “jaw hit the floor.” It was then when he began his path under the instruction of Scottish Master Gaffer Robert Mason.

A native of Osaka, Japan, Matsumoto took her first glass blowing class while attending design school. At the time she had no idea what could be done with glass—her interest piqued.  

Matsumoto worked at the Suwa Glass Studio in Nagano, and she “just loved being there…and learning about glass. What other material moves by its own, and you have to listen to it to make a shape?” 

She eventually found her way to a class in Corning, New York (a prominent glass blowing community) in 1999 where she and McDermott met. And, as Matsumoto said, “when you have the same interests, it is easy to understand each other even if you don’t speak same language.”

McDermott recognized Matsumoto’s talent and invited her to work on the Cape. They eventually married and opened McDermott Glass Studio in 2002.

Matsumoto’s favorite part of the glassblowing process is making the color. As she says, “glass color can change by mixing, the chemical in the glass makes some black and gold color turn into beautiful purplish blue.”

The teamwork is part of the passion. “It is not so much what comes out, it the while we are making it, the flow and the teamwork—one head, eight hands,” he says. Adds Matsumoto, “we can lose a piece by two seconds if somebody is off.”

McDermott describes their production line as a circle where one person starts the process with the colors, and the next person blows the shapes. Matsumoto emphasizes the importantance of careful concentration at all times as well as the glass moving. “Once you start the piece, you have to be in,” she said.

The piece is then put into a kiln, and then into the annealing oven, which is set at 910 degrees. The key is to maintain an even temperature to cool pieces gradually and evenly, so the piece doesn’t get stressed and break.

Even so, McDermott does not call himself an artist. He considers himself a “craftsman and a technician,” who will forever be learning his craft.

As someone honing a craft, when they opened their studio McDermott and Matsumoto began a yearly gathering, the Glass Jam, where they invite glassblowers, artists, sculptors and woodworkers to their studio every October to come together to learn from and share with each other. And, of course, to have fun.

In addition to selling their work at their own studio and gallery, McDermott Glass creations can be found at the Sandwich Glass Museum, Samuel Day Gallery in Sandwich, and My Sister’s Gallery in Sandwich, and online at www.mcdermottglass.com. In addition their pieces are on display at Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, and the Corning Museum of Glass.