The furnaces are blasting at 1170 degrees in the ‘hot shop’ at Canberra Glassworks. On the early spring day I visit, pale legs prematurely sporting shorts, I feel instantly tan. But Ben Edols doesn’t break a sweat.

Edols, whose work with his partner Kathy Elliott is held in the permanent collections of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Toyama Glass Art Museum (Japan), is demonstrating the process by which he turns what is essentially a bubbling mix of molten sand, limestone and sodium carbonate into highly desirable objects for the home.