[Nick] Throw sand, lime and soda into a 2,000 degree Fahrenheit furnace,
and you get liquid glass.
Skilled glassblowers gather the molten mixture using hollow pipes.
And when they blow,
glass inflates to form a bubble to shape and sculpt.
The tools and techniques date back to Roman times,
but we're about to
turn up the heat.
We're back at North America's largest hot shop
to watch ten exceptional artists…
[blowing]
…fight fire with fire.
And now the fun begins.
[dramatic string music playing]
Go big or go home.
[Nick] And with great risk…
-Oh, God. -Rest on the bench. Rest on the bench!
-I always come out swinging. -…comes great reward.
-Yeah, baby! -[Minhi] Whoo!
[Nick] If they can survive our fiery competition,
they'll win a life-changing prize package
that will establish them around the globe as Best In Glass.
I'm Nick Uhas, and you're gonna be Blown Away.
[hissing, sizzling]
[dramatic music playing]
John Sharvin, Minhi, John Moran.
You've made it to the top three.
Congratulations.
-Yeah. -Good job, guys.
[John S] It's been an emotional roller coaster.
I thought I'd go home on the first challenge.
And now I'm in the final three.
It's crazy.
You three have out-blown, out-sculpted and outlasted
seven other artists to make it here.
You should be very proud of yourselves.
I know we are.
But there's just one little thing standing in your way of making it to the finale,
and that's the next challenge.
[Katherine] Win today's challenge
and you are guaranteed a spot in the finale.
Win that and you get a $60,000 prize package
that includes cash
and a residency at the Corning Museum of Glass.
I have a one-in-three chance, and that's, uh…
It's terrifying and mind-blowing at the same time.
[Katherine] And you'll be joining the ranks
of previous Blown Away champions,
Deborah Czeresko and Elliot Walker.
In Season 2, Elliot famously went from random British guy to Best in Glass.
And now he can add something else to his resume, guest evaluator.
[chuckles]
[uplifting string music playing]
I was definitely hoping to see Elliot show up at some point.
Watching Elliot compete was really inspiring.
[John S] He's been right here.
So, he gets it, and he knows how hard it is.
When I was in your shoes, all I did was worry.
I'd never even been to,
let alone worked in, a North American hot shop.
And once I was in the competition, I started thinking about winning.
That scared me too.
I didn't know how my life would change and if I was ready for that.
[John S] I've had, like, every one of those thoughts.
"Winning would be terrifying." Winning would be terrifying.
For today's challenge, we want you to face your greatest fear
and create a piece of art inspired by that.
It could be a fear that motivates you, something you've already conquered,
or something that still haunts you.
We want you to be brave and to take risks.
Trust me, now is not the time to hold back.
[Katherine] Our expectations are high,
so we're giving you five hours and two assistants.
We will be evaluating your work
on concept, technical skill
and overall presentation.
Today's winner will be named Best in Blow and move on to the finale.
The artist that does not blow us away
will be eliminated and asked to leave the hot shop.
Elliot, will you do the honors?
Yes, please.
[chuckles]
Glassblowers, your time starts
now.
[dramatic string music playing]
[John S] I'm trying to face one of my greatest fears today.
I think this is going to be a challenge that I love and hate at the same time.
I have two older brothers.
I'm the baby of the family. I'm Baby Sharvin.
What I'm making is
a piece about what it would be like if I lost one of my brothers.
I'm making six bottles.
The first three are all gonna be
really strong memories I have with my brothers.
And then these bottles on the other side,
this would be, you know, if I had lost one of my brothers
and the other two would be us, kind of, like, in shambles.
It's the final three. I really gotta go for it.
[chuckling] It's a lot to do.
[intriguing music playing]
[John M] My plan is to make a little baby bird,
like, kind of, a fairy tale-ish bird that tried to leave the nest,
but it crashed and died.
The nest is also gonna be made from, like, parts of a human heart.
The concept of the piece is dying alone as a failure, or dying as a failure.
Everything I do is steered by these fears or insecurities.
[elegant piano music playing]
[Minhi] My biggest fear is unfulfilled potential.
I watched my husband die six months ago,
and I feel that I've lost the potential for what we were doing together.
Fear motivates me.
I'm going to make a cage form which I will blow a bubble into.
Then I'm going to crack open the top,
which will reveal the inside that is crumbling.
A lot of it is me relinquishing control
and hoping that it's going to be beautiful.
I'm excited.
[exciting music playing]
[John S] This is crazy.
There's one more challenge before the final.
I wanna just knock it out of the park.
That was an awesome gather, John.
Way to go.
[Minhi] Whoo!
Nice and hot. [laughs]
It feels so good to be at this point in the competition.
I just feel like,
"Well, I've made it this far, I've got to make it all the way."
[John M] There's three of us, we're all amazing. That's the reality.
It'll take everything I have to get through the challenge and to the finale.
Yeah, I would hate to be eliminated now at this stage.
I want to get this piece done. I want it to come out the way I want.
[shatters]
Okay. Well, that just did that.
I almost died.
You okay, bud?
[uplifting string music playing]
[John M] So the challenge is to reveal your deepest, darkest fear
and then illustrate it for the world. [chuckles]
So I'm making this dead baby bird.
It's about fragility. It's about how easily we can fall.
It's a fear but it's also a reality. [chuckles]
Each bottle's its own, like, separate thing.
So it's, like, kind of weird.
So yeah, I'm making six bottles
that are capturing memories I have with my brothers.
So we're gonna do the lighthouse first.
They are going to have actual pieces inside of the bottles,
kind of like a ship-in-a-bottle thing.
Uh, I'm doing a lot of stuff I haven't done before.
We're giving it a shot.
[Minhi] Ha ha!
I love that.
I love the way it looks.
I'm trying to reference collaborative artwork that I've made with my husband.
Very tentacle-like.
Jesse and I used to make cage forms out of steel,
so I am sort of mimicking that in the hot shop,
and I'm torching the surface of the glass to add texture.
I love letting glass do what it wants to do.
Even if it's a crack.
So, Elliot, how does it feel to be back in the Blown Away hot shop?
Are you having flashbacks?
I'm… I'm having much more fun now than I did then.
[all laughing]
[Nick] I take it that becoming the Blown Away champion
has erased all of your fears and worries?
No, I'm still a bag of nerves.
[laughs] Yeah, totally. Still a bag of nerves.
[Nick] Katherine, your work is in museums and galleries.
You're a professor, a glass master.
Is the fear of failure still a thing for you?
Oh, gosh. Yeah, I feel like with a lot of artists,
there's always, like, the fear that you're gonna fail.
It's lovely to know that that carries on throughout your career. [laughing]
-Or just your whole life for everything. -Got that to look forward to.
Yeah, yeah. You never feel safe.
[both laughing]
Hi! Hi, competition.
-[John S] Hi, competition! -[laughing]
[John S] Turn just a little bit.
The first component I'm making is this lighthouse,
it's Little Sable Point in Michigan.
My parents would take me and my brothers there.
It's a really special place to me.
To make the lines in the brick,
I use this little, tiny Japanese surgical steel knife.
It makes just the perfect lines.
Yeah, precision sculpture here.
Come on back.
I'm applying color to the head of the bird using the stringers.
So I'm making the head first,
and I wanna put a lot of details into the head.
It definitely feels risky to me.
I'm basically making, like, one kinda small piece,
putting a lot of time and detail into it.
Not only is there lots of details in it, there's a lot of color in it.
That fear of failure is built into the piece, for sure.
Five hours seems like it should be loads of time, but it's not.
I'm gonna be down to the wire on this one.
I hope I-- I won't die on this one.
[chuckles]
All right, let's just make a bottle.
[gentle piano music playing]
[Nick] Elliot, would you like a crack at this challenge?
I wouldn't like to have a crack at any challenge, I don't think.
I feel like I've done my time.
[laughs]
I'm not a natural sharer and this is one of those challenges where you have to.
You're backed into a corner. You have to open up a bit.
That's something I would struggle with, I think.
Like a crazy person, I'm deciding to do this today.
How hard is it gonna be for you to critique these artists,
knowing what they've gone through?
[Elliot] I'm gonna try and just look at the work itself.
That's what I'm gonna be looking for, that the work tells its own story.
Okay. Flash.
And from what I've seen of the artists already,
I'll definitely get that.
[gentle string music playing]
It can be a little draining
to make something that is so closely tied with how I'm feeling,
but it's worth it.
In the end, it's a good way to get it out.
Never in a million years did I think that I would be a 33-year-old widow.
And… here I am.
When I lost my husband, Jesse,
it was incredibly difficult to continue as an artist.
He was my number-one collaborator.
We built our studio together.
When you share everything with a person and you suddenly lose them,
you lose a lot, you lose a part of yourself.
[intriguing string music playing]
[John M] So the idea is that, like,
this little bird tried to fly and didn't make it.
I guess I don't want to die trying. I guess that's the thing.
Not just be an artist who lives paycheck to paycheck
for the rest of my life.
[Nick] Katherine, John Moran is kind of a heavy-hitter,
but are you surprised that we have John Sharvin and Minhi in the top three?
Minhi and John Sharvin are definitely really great up-and-comers
with fresh eyes, fresh energy, fresh spirit.
They have a lot of potential to really surprise us.
Yeah, go ahead. Get close.
[Elliot] Yeah, I mean, I think experience counts for a lot,
but, you know, the passion and the ideas
are more than enough to bring someone to the top.
-[Katherine] Mm-hmm. -[Minhi] Nice.
[vocalizing] Ah!
[chuckling] It's gorgeous. Love it.
How big of a tree do we want here?
So right now, I'm working on the tree bottle.
[thuds]
Whoops. Come here.
Elliot, this is the last challenge before the finale.
What were you feeling during this part of the competition?
Well, I think fear is such an important part of our genetic make-up.
You know, it's in our DNA, and it's there for survival.
And I think that was probably the main word in my head,
-is "Survive, survive, survive," so… -[both chuckling]
♪ Gonna burn my face off ♪
♪ Hell, yeah, for the sake of art ♪
-[whooshing] -[dramatic music playing]
[Minhi] That's what we're talking about. All right.
[intriguing string music playing]
-Hi, Minhi. You all right? How's it going? -Hi, Elliot. I'm well.
So I know this is the ninth challenge,
and you've probably got your head right in this piece,
but have you been thinking about the final challenge?
-Have you got something in mind for it? -Yes.
You have two choices now
about who you want to go up against in the final challenge.
Is it John or is it John?
-Definitely John. [laughing] -John, perfect answer.
That's an easy one for you, I think. [laughs]
[Minhi] I think that it's going to be tough
no matter which John I'm up against.
It's a really hard thing to say.
-Hard one to choose. -Yeah.
Do I pick the person that I think that I could win against,
or do I pick the person who I respect the most?
I'd certainly worry more about John Moran than John Sharvin.
John Sharvin's work has been a little bit hit-or-miss.
-[clatters] -[music fades]
I saw something on the Internet one time, and I want to try it now,
so that's basically what's happening.
[chuckling] I might get burned. I don't know.
[dramatic music playing]
I've only seen this veil technique done on social media
or like a video of it somewhere.
Never tried it.
We're just gonna do it.
[chuckles]
[suspenseful music playing]
There's a big risk in putting these pieces together,
having them not line up correctly,
having the temperatures be wrong, the sizes be wrong, which is just…
[groans] Like, it's crazy.
All right.
[dramatic music playing]
Boom. Veil. Fabric. Nailed it.
[intense music playing]
Okay.
It's just so weird without a head.
So I've never made a bird before.
It still looks really odd.
So, uh, I really want to attach the head.
'Cause I think that's what's gonna give it its kind of completion.
I hope. [chuckles]
Turn… stop.
Yeah, it'll be good.
[suspenseful music playing]
All the details that are in the head, everything brings it right together.
I feel like it's doing what it's supposed to do. I'm excited.
Okay, grab it.
All right, next.
We have one hour left, glassblowers.
Sixty minutes.
Super.
[suspenseful music playing]
So that was four hours for that little bird.
So what I have to do is make the heart.
I have to move quickly on it.
My main fear is not finishing and going home.
-Hi. -Hi, John Sharvin. How's it going?
-It's going pretty good. -Top three. How's that feel?
Top three. It's crazy.
I mean, most people in the glass world know me as the glass technician guy.
[chuckling] Maybe I'm better at this than I think I am some days.
Do you see yourself as an underdog?
A little bit.
I almost, like, suffer from impostor syndrome,
being like, "What am I doing here?"
I'm like, "They're gonna find me out, like, I'm actually terrible, like…"
But the nice thing is, these are all happy memories I have with my brothers.
[Katherine] How will your brothers feel seeing you on this competition?
Uh, I think they're gonna be extremely proud of me. Um…
They've always been so supportive of my passion for glass and art.
I want to prove this has been good, and I don't wanna let 'em down.
-I wish you luck. -Thank you so much.
[Katherine] Good luck.
[Minhi] All right, you guys.
You ready to do this?
[gentle music playing]
This piece is about breath.
Jesse's cancer metastasized into his lungs,
and I watched him take his last breath.
[inhales]
And so that's the symbolism here.
The breath is what allows us to carry on.
[exhales]
[timer ticking]
There's 30 minutes left in this challenge, artists.
[groans]
That definitely went quick.
[John S groans]
Just drained.
[John M] All right. We are on track.
Yep. You guys are killing it today.
I'm here to win.
John and Minhi, they're two really great competitors.
Having no control over the outcome is terrifying.
-Okay, that's that-- Whoa. -[clangs]
That's, like, a cute bottle.
Cute bottle, let's smash.
I'm making these two, kind of, broken bottles.
Those are representative of losing one of my brothers.
If we're not a group of three anymore, it's just these two broken kind of people
left behind, basically.
[Minhi] Turn.
-[assistant] Ready? -Yup.
[clangs]
[Minhi] Whoo!
Barely fits in there.
The real sketchy part is that I want to break the bubble open.
Let's do it.
Yes, I know it's gonna crack, and yes, I know it's gonna break,
but what I don't want is for the entire thing to break.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Minhi sighs]
Looks good.
Time check, please!
This is your five-minute warning, everyone.
There's only five minutes left.
[Minhi groans]
♪ Down to the wire ♪
[John M] You're all suited up. Good.
[John S] Last bottle.
[tense music playing]
[John M] Whoo.
Flash.
Yeah, this one is going into the bucket.
[Minhi] Go for it.
Lift.
[John S] Hold your breath.
Okay, grab it.
Yup. Lift. Pull.
Beautiful. That's fine. Just keep it together.
[suspenseful music playing]
[hissing]
Tip, yes. Yeah, that's gonna stay together.
[John M] Go, go, go.
Whoo!
[John M] Whoo.
[laughs]
Nice.
Nice, dude.
[John M] Nice job, guys.
We did it.
Nice job.
[John M] Hell, yeah! Whoo!
-[John S] Yeah! Nice job, man. -[John M] We did it.
[pleasant music playing]
[clunks]
[John M] I think this piece tells a lot about me.
It touches on more than just my fears.
It touches on what I do as an artist and who I am as a person.
I'm really proud of it.
Yeah, I hope it gets me to the final two.
[John S] This piece is definitely the most personal piece I've made.
It means so much to me.
I hope the evaluators see that I can make conceptual work.
There's layers to this, and there's a lot going on.
This is just me.
[Minhi] I hope the evaluators see
the emotional turmoil encompassed within this work.
It's not beautiful, and that is poignant.
Grief is anything but beautiful.
[intriguing music playing]
[Nick] Well, here it is, folks, the penultimate gallery.
Let's start with Minhi's piece.
"This work is modeled after a body of work Minhi and her late husband worked on."
"Now Minhi is left to pick up the broken pieces."
Hearing the statement, it's good to have that context.
Because I wouldn't necessarily know
where the piece is coming from without that.
It's always a little bit tricky when you're looking at something
that's broken made out of glass
because your first impression is that, oh, you know, something's wrong.
It is a bit of a gamble, I think, on a piece like this.
I think it's hard to define which breakages are intentional
-and which are part of the process. -Mm.
But it's a really physical piece.
It has a presence in a lot of positive ways.
[Nick] This is John Sharvin's piece.
"These bottles represent John Sharvin's memories with his brothers
and also the grief that would come with not having them in his life."
[Elliot] It's basically two pieces.
This is the joy of the piece, and then this is the grief and the fear.
[Katherine] I don't know if he needed all of these three bottles.
He could have, maybe, done some editing.
I think a lot of what he's trying to say is just encapsulated in this one.
[Elliot] I agree with that.
I do really like this shroud put over the top.
I find this sort of technique and the lack of control in it really interesting,
and it works for me.
I'm not too sure about what this powdered section
is trying to add to the piece, or trying to tell us.
[Katherine] I will say, he's had to put both the lighthouse and the tree
inside the bottle, all hot,
and then close the bottle up afterwards,
which is very tricky.
Yeah, it's really hard to do well.
-Yeah. -[laughing] You know?
[dramatic music playing]
[Nick] This is John Moran's piece.
"The idea of working tirelessly and making huge sacrifices
only to die alone and as a failure terrifies John Moran."
I-- I guess I see that,
you know, with the bird that's fallen out of the nest.
As I recall, the nest is also supposed to be a heart.
-Mm! -That's sort of completely lost, I think.
-It is very lost. -It's completely lost.
[Katherine] You know, I think it's a fine line
between a piece being too abstracted or stylized.
[Elliot] I do think that the expression
and the animation in the bird itself and the sculpting,
and his little eye being just a little bit open,
so he still has that little flame of life,
-I think that's beautifully done. -[Katherine] Mm-hmm.
So would you say this piece is good enough to make it into the final two?
I think it's the same with all the pieces, you know?
There are very strong elements
and then parts of the piece, which-- They're just not hitting home with me.
It's gonna take a lot to reach a decision.
[dramatic music playing]
[John M] I'd be disappointed to go home now.
I feel like I've sacrificed a lot to be here.
I really want to get to the end.
[Minhi] At this point in the competition, I'm feeling terrible.
Making it to this point has taken a lot out of me.
[John S] I'm really happy with what I pulled off today.
I could see myself in the final two and winning it, at this point.
For this challenge,
we asked you to face your fears and create a poignant piece of glass.
Minhi.
[Katherine] The backstory is such a really big part of your piece.
Do you feel like
what you have on the pedestal… conveys as much of that as you would like?
I… [exhales]
I really love this piece.
I-- I feel so personally connected and invested in it.
It's shrouded with this darkness on the outside
representing the grief that consumes me,
that I battle with every single day.
I'm sure that it's really, really difficult
to keep it together under these circumstances.
So, thank you so much.
Thank you.
John Sharvin, we'd love to hear about your bottle collection.
[John S] My brothers, Mike and David, are my best friends in the entire world.
The bottles are capturing all these memories we had growing up.
The bottles on the left are cracked, not able to kinda make new memories.
So I really enjoy the second bottle in with the rubber bullets.
I mean, being the eldest of three brothers,
I'm very familiar with that feeling of being pelted.
Could you just talk me through your use
of powder on the outside of the right-hand set?
[John S] The powder are these stained memories,
is kind of the way I was viewing it.
Those memories would be a little tainted, they wouldn't be as clean anymore.
They'd be a little dim.
-Okay, thank you. -Thank you.
John Moran.
I love the dynamism in this piece, the way you've presented it.
And the detail and finesse
that you've put into the bird on the bottom pedestal is really lovely.
I was wondering whether you think,
like, the heart part of the sculpture was maybe lost a bit.
[John M] So the-- the heart part
was intentionally supposed to be pieced together.
'Cause it's supposed to be a nest that you build,
like it's something that's ripped, like,
-from your heart. -Mm-hmm.
So it's supposed to be pieced together.
It's supposed to have this reference to, like, a crown of thorns.
Something that'd draw you in
but would still be very intimate when you got into it.
So there was a lot going on.
Great. Thank you, John.
Thank you.
Thank you, artists.
We know there's a lot at stake for all three of you,
so we need some time to deliberate.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Katherine] I'm very torn.
It's hard to think about eliminating somebody
when the work is so personal.
[John S] I've poured so much emotionally, physically, technically into this piece,
but it's up in the air now at this point.
[Elliot] We've got to remember that it's more about the piece,
in the end, than the-- than the story.
[Minhi] I have goosebumps.
I have chills. I'm shaking.
I feel like anybody can go home.
All right. Well, let's deliver the news.
I still feel like I walk away from this a winner,
no matter what happens.
[tense music playing]
Thank you for waiting.
This is one of the hardest decisions we've ever had to make.
Today's Best in Blow goes to…
John Moran.
Thanks.
I'm ecstatic that I-- I got this win.
Just the amount of excitement right now,
it's, uh-- I can't even-- I can't express it.
Congratulations, John Moran. You have secured a spot in the finale.
Thank you. Really.
I'm just really excited to go forward.
[Nick] John Sharvin, Minhi, for one of you, your Blown Away journey
ends right here right now.
The artist who did not blow us away and must leave the hot shop immediately is…
John Sharvin.
Totally. Thanks, guys.
It's been… like nothing else I've ever done.
It's fantastic.
-You guys are awesome. -[Minhi] You did great.
[John S] You did fantastic.
Love you, dude.
[contemplative music playing]
Thanks, John.
[John S] I was a little lost coming into this competition,
and I've learned just so much about me as an artist and as a human being.
I accomplished getting this far in the competition,
and I'm thrilled about that.
It's been such a great experience.
Thanks so much, guys. Have a good one. You guys rule.
I came into this competition as a studio technician,
and I'm leaving as an artist now.
Yeah!
[chuckles]
[Katherine] Congratulations, Minhi and John Moran.
You guys'll be going head-to-head in the finale.
[both chuckle softly]
All right.
[Elliot] I've been in your shoes,
and it's impossible to give advice at this point
because it's your own journey.
But to be honest,
I think everyone is gonna be in awe of what you've done so far.
[chuckling] So, well done. And keep it going.
[chuckles softly] Thanks.
Minhi, John Moran, we'll see you at the finale.
[exhales]
Moving into the finale is horrifying.
I have no idea what's next. [chuckling]
I really don't.
-Here we go. -[both chuckle]
[closing theme music playing]