Eli Mazet gets to his glass-blowing studio—a shed behind his brother’s house in Springfield, Oregon—at 5 a.m. He works for 13 hours, making tens of pieces to be sold at the Saturday Market or glassblowing shops around the country. He’s been blowing glass since 1997 and taught the glass class at the University of Oregon Craft Center from 2008 to 2016.

When Mazet dropped out of college and got a job at UPS, he was content with working there for the rest of his life. Then, Mazet’s brother introduced him to glass, and he’s been doing it ever since. Since starting, he’s taught his ex-wife, current girlfriend, and two daughters to blow glass recreationally.

Throughout his glassblowing career, Mazet’s felt the support of his family, customers, and fellow glassblowers. But at the end of the day, “You’re the key to your own future. Nobody’s gonna come out of the sky and do anything for you,” Mazet says. “Everything that you do, you’re going to create on your own.”

Glassblowing is a form of meditation for Mazet. When he turns his torch on, he isn’t thinking about the world outside of him; he’s thinking about how to make the piece in his mind come to life. That’s what meditation is, he says, dreaming about something and building it.

In his 80s, Mazet wants to dig a six-foot ditch in his backyard. The day he doesn’t want to blow glass anymore, he says he’ll “walk around the corner and fall in that ditch.”

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“That’s how much I love it,” he says with a smile, “I mean, how could you get tired of this?”