MarcoArellano

🎠 001 – Cotton Candy Carousel Swirls of soft pink and dreamlike blue tumble together like spun sugar at a twilight carnival. “Cotton Candy Carousel” is a delicate storm of sweetness and nostalgia a fierce racer whose calm exterior masks a competitive core. Each twist of glass captures motion in stillness, echoing the elegant spin of a carousel horse. As the first-ever marble in the H.M.R.A., it leads the charge with grace and style. 🍑 002 – Georgia Peach This tangy fireball blends ripe peach orange with glowing blush pink, kissed with flashes of golden yellow like the last rays of a southern sunset. “Georgia Peach” is a bold sprinter juicy and ready to blaze down the track. With a sense of ripe abundance and attitude, this is the second marble to ever enter the Handmade Marble Racing Association a sunlit streak of pure Southern heat. 🐝 003 – Bumble Gum With soft pinks, sweet yellows, and buzzing blacks, “Bumble Gum” is an energetic swirl of sugar and sting. It brings together bubblegum colors and garden tones playful yet powerful. The swirling contrasts in its glass show how joy and tension live side by side. The third racer in the H.M.R.A., “Bumble Gum” dances across the track like a trickster bee with a sugar rush.

More tracks under construction HMRA – Handmade Marble Racing Association Handmade. Colorful. Competitive. Built to roll.

These colors will be twisted, spun, and formed into marbles for the upcoming Global Marble Hunt. Let’s spin. —Marco A. Salem, Oregon

Round 1 st done Thank you to the teams at Northstar and TAG for fueling this work. More colors coming. More marbles to roll. Let’s spin. —Marco A. Salem, Oregon

Drawing of how to take a glowing gather of borosilicate glass and turn it into a clear marble.

🔥🔮 Marble Making 099 This isn’t 101… this is 099 the prerequisite. Where every marble journey begins 🔥🔮 Marble Making 099: The Maria Method Here are the steps laid out in glass, showing the path from the very beginning all the way to a finished marble. It starts with a glass rod, gathered and heated in the flame. From there, I press the rod to form a Maria a flat, coin like disk that becomes the base for shaping. A second Maria can be pushed to one side, a third to the other, even one in the middle. These Marias set the structure and give me points of control before rounding. Once the Marias are stacked, I begin to round them up in the flame. Step by step, the flat disks soften and smooth into a sphere. Gravity helps as I turn and shift axes, letting the weight of the glass do the work. When I’m satisfied with the shape, I remove the punty, polish away tool marks in the flame, and finish balancing the marble until it spins evenly in the hand. The result is a round glass sphere made from the Maria method no color no decoration only rhythm, heat, and balance. A roadmap from rod to marble. Thank you to every teacher and glass master along my journey. -Marco