2023-11-10 05:00:02
A whole miniature universe that fits in the hand: gold, silver, glitter, iridescent spirals, a strange Milky Way enclosed in small glass spheres. These “space glass” or mini-galaxies by glassmakers Colin Gérard and Maëlle Le Rolland are making a splash on the internet and are being snapped up on their site “ Just Glass it ” around the world. An unexpected success for this “galactic” collection, not entirely due to chance.
An inlay of galaxies inside a glass sphere. A very arduous technique developed over two years. (Colin Gérard)
Two years to find the right technique
The adventure of the young glassmakers from Bréhat began in 2016 with a simple workshop-boutique on the island. “It was Maëlle, a glassmaker trained at Verreries de Bréhat, who introduced me to this art and I became addicted to the material,” confides Colin. Addicted and above all obsessed by an idea: to succeed in forming and bringing interstellar worlds into glass balls. Two years of groping to find the right technique. “I use the blowtorch by melting colored glass rods. This flame manufacturing-fusion up to 1,500°C is very different from glass blowing. To have overlapping lines of the spiral, it is difficult and the result is totally unpredictable,” explains the glassmaker, who jealously guards his manufacturing secrets. Moreover, its inspiration is free and no existing galaxy will recognize itself in it!
Galactic universes that are both unique and random. (Colin Gérard)
When NASA tweets
The two thirty-somethings therefore sell their production on the island, also available in jewelry. But it’s a video, posted on the networks to show their creations, which will set the machine ablaze. Seen by several million Internet users, it was shared, in 2018, by the NASA Twitter account! The intergalactic foothold for Colin, crazy regarding astronomy since childhood, who also always has his big telescope at hand: “It’s always cool, the Bréhat sky”.
But if thirty-somethings have their heads in the stars, they also have their feet on the ground and are now focusing solely on their e-commerce. “We work hard on social networks. This is the crux of the matter,” they admit. Some 20,000 people follow them on Instagram, 15,000 on Twitter (X), they approach YouTubers and influencers, such as the mentalist Fabien Olicard or even an engineer from the Canadian Space Agency came specially to buy them star beads in Bréhat…
The famous note signed Thomas Pesquet with the envelope on the header of the European Space Station. (Colin Gérard)
A Brehatine galaxy aboard the ISS?
But the achievement of which they are most proud is to have been able to touch Thomas Pesquet himself. “It was our big quest for 2023,” laughs Colin. The Breton astrophysicist Éric Lagadec, president of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics, came across our work, liked it, and found us the address of his office. » Neither one nor two, a galaxy is sent as a gift to the astronaut, with the idea that he can (we can dream) take it into space, aboard the ISS. Months pass, without response, until this beautiful Brehat morning when an envelope with the ESA (European Space Agency) logo arrives. Inside, a photo signed Thomas Pesquet and a “thank you for the sphere”. Crazy, “long live and prosper”, as my friend Spock would have said. Colin, for his part, remains philosophical: “We know that the Space Agency might not authorize our sphere up there, that would be “, but continues to dream. “There’s so much stuff going into space right now. Why not aim for a private mission… Besides, we have always operated with nerve. »
All it would take is a good alignment of planets…
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