The word is just getting out about Grand Rapids Glass Blowing Studio?
I like to keep informal stats on how long it takes for an art story to arrive to me. First bloggy post on the Grand Rapids Glass Blowing Studio page gives November 17th 2011 as a rough start of operations. So forty-three days. On Facebook, I noticed where one of my favorite teachers of art shared a link to one of my favorite glass blowers, and now I have a website and an address. This process of dissemination has taken forty plus days. There's a lamp working studio last I knew in Jazz Woodworks of Grand Haven. Muskegon had a studio; I have no idea where Jilly Barnes of downtown Muskegon does her slagging now that the hot glass studio near the Milwaukee ferry terminal is closed. So despite Habitat Galleries headquarters buying and curating in Royal Oak and Toledo Art Museum Glass Pavilion being not to far away, West Michigan glass has been in a slump.
For the most part, the friend drives down to Waterworks Glass Studio in Benton Harbor. The hot glass studio in the wooded dunes of Ox-Bow is led by Jerry Catania, who works last I knew out of Vesuvius on the Blue Star Highway and Waterworks. I have no indication that that Ox-Bow's open air studio maintains winter hours.
Story is, Scott Haebich and John Ripema incubated the studio for five years north of Grand Rapids. Big Rapids? Now, Grand Rapids proper doesn't have to mumble when people talk about Detroit Hot Glass in the Russell Industrial Center or Epiphany Studios near a lake in Pontiac, Michigan. Detroit even has a glory hole for molten glass right on Woodward Boulevard, a business and school called Touch of Light. Grand Rapids usually fights for a lead over its sister city. And now, GR has players in the game. GR leads in ice carving, to my mind. Why not glass, the chemical relative to ice?
Sadly, Grand Rapids Hot Glass will be dark until March 2012. There's nothing like a hot glass show in the winter time, though. Dallas Hot Glass in Deep Ellum has as many bleachers as a football stadium and lets visitors crash bowling balls into rejects. Now's the time to develop an audience! Glass blowing is a spectator sport.
I have to stop and wonder. What ever happened to the hot glass studio in the Dallas enclave of Deep Ellum? I think it jumped to the Cedars neighborhood and became Bowman Hot Glass. The hot glass session I attended on a hot summer night was well attended, everyone drinking the plentiful Ozarka Spring water, kept on ice. If you know anything about Texans, you'll know how they keep cool on a hot summer evening. That's right. A fire is lit. So watching men and women shaping hot glass on a hot night in Deep Ellum? A huge draw for Texas culture seekers.
http://www.danad.com/clients/Bowman/index.html
I also notice that Joe Sherry has set up a hot glass shop on Division Street in Grand Rapids, thanks to assistance from the Dwelling Place. Rapid Growth covered the story in February 2011. Looks like Grand Rapids has an art glass movement underway in the furniture city.
Grand Rapids Glass Blowing Studio
O-465 Lake Michigan Drive, Grand Rapids, MI 49534
Phone 616.676.3801
http://www.GRglassblowing.com
WanderingWilbo is written by Wilbo in response to his travels for business and pleasure.